Steem might seem like it is controlled by the creators and run by steemit.com but in actuality it can be used in many different ways. I have spent my time here learning and the community isn't based around steemit.com but instead base around Steem. The idea of steemit.com isn't revolutionary, a blog the is clean and allows users to post. But Steem on the other hand is a currency controlled by the content creators. Anyone can make an application that can run Steem and allow others to access to blockchain. I believe this is where Steem will really take off.
A competition for the same posts, a competition to give user's the best experience posting and enjoying content. Think if New York Times gave everyone access to publish their articles. Anyone can create an application that shows New York Times articles. It would destroy the revenue that the company enjoys and instead allow anyone to share this information. This is where Steem could easily head.
Think if a advertising company like google picked it up and reward the user's who viewed articles there with even more wealth incentives for being in an environment with ads. Just an idea, but the concept is, anyone can keep rolling with this idea. We are not help back by this website's user interface. This cryptocurrency cannot be stopped unless we let it as a community.
Don't think of Steem as capping out here. The ideas that stays fundamentally across functionality is giving Steem Power to the one's creating the best content judged by the community. There can be sub communities with in Steem and the community can grow and grow to as far as our imaginations can perceive.
I just hope the Steem community can adapt to changes while keeping the fundamental concepts of a content reward based cryptocurrency a reality. If that happens, we can see huge grow by putting our time into a revolutionary idea (One of the top IMO since bitcoin).