I don't think Steem could ever die, unless all of the dapps and users went away. There are just too many people working here to try and get things happening.

With that said, I don't know what all is working against it in the background. Could be people actively trying to bring it down, for all I know. We have a very small user base on Whaleshares and we are trying to build it back up after HF4 but it's hard when you have people actively trying to harm the platform at every turn. It's just so much easier when everyone works together.