I think in this respect cryptos like steem and hive are different.
For most of (or all) the others, you buy and hope they are going to go up so you can sell and pocket a profit. There's not much else to do anyway, "being active" on the respective blockchains requires one to spend those cryptos in tx fees, which runs contrary to the very reason one bought those alts.
In contrast, steem and hive are powering real applications, such as these blogging platforms on which I come, I find and read a post like yours and it makes me reflect and react: these are the resorts of economic value creation. I don't need to buy steem nor hive, I can earn them by interacting productively with the others. And I don't have to spend steem nor hive in order to interact. These things make a huge difference. Because the price of steem/hive is so low, they remain somewhat of a hustle though. Aside perhaps from tarazkp, not sure other people can live from their writing here
But with steem or hive at $4 or more, these blockchains can sustain real economic activity as we saw it in the era of the revolutionary Utopian.io Then we will be speaking about a wholly new economy and people will be able to "get a job" on these blockchains, they will be able to perform here their main gainful activity. It would not be a hustle anymore.