Truly the plan behind Steemit is a really brilliant one, paying people to do the things they do on other social media platforms. Like you pointed out the boom attracted many people to Steemit but then, those were the guys who came in late. Most of the people who rushed in in December did that as a result of the boom of the Steem Backed Dollar.
The SBD really attracted several people to the platform. When the price of SBD was at $1, people were coming in but the influx wasn't as much as that seen in december. SBD at $12 gave people a reason to join the platform and stay. In certain countries where most of the people lived on less than $5 daily and were grateful if they could find a wage of $10, Steemit.com was a life saver. Spending 4 hours making a post with the hopes that upon payout, it can get even 0.5 SBD was worth it.
And then, there was the big dip which cut across every cryptocurrency and the crypto world is presently struggling as a result of that. About the reduced influx of people into Steemit and the way some accounts are being left for good, it's only by people who came in during the boom. while the crypto market isn't what it was in december or january, the ongoing process to peg the SBD back to a dollar per SBD isn't helping things either. To the newbie on Steemit, SBD is god of the steemit eco system. The steem power earned is just some money locked up in a fixed deposit account, while they require money now. To them, Steem can stay at $1 for all they care, as long as SBD fetches a good price on the market. I've had to explain to too many people about how steem favours the platform. Despite all the processes to push steem higher at the expense of the SBD, Steem hasn't exactly grown appreciably. Instead, the rise and fall of the market has been affecting it also.
However, when the price of SBD falls the content creators who are paid in SBD seven days after making a post are not compensated as much as they used to be. I have met certain users and requested their reason for not blogging on Steemit again and their reply has been the decline in SBD's price. Even when SBD was at $5, people were still okay with it but that isn't the case now.
In my own opinion, I think the price of SBD should be allowed to float and when it attains a certain position, we can expect the influx of more people into steemit. Afterall, people flooded in when the Steem was at $1.5 and SBD was at $9.
I'm not the most knowledgeable man in this matters and I would be open to corrections.
Hope to see SBD used in real life cases like paying for coffee. That may increase the demand and perhaps the price.