Because of dApps, especially dApps like musing, steemhunt, dtube and these dApps are life saver for some people and also for minnows.
Its popularity will grow even more as we approach SMT release and I think that will be a time we can see some good rally in steem price. SMT will be a key milestone for steemit and currently the entire infrastructure is basically focused on SMT and steemit Inc is also working hard on this.
I personally believe that even if we get 30% good dApps of all the available dApps, it will be able drive the economy of steem in a better way.