You must have heard this statement in the comments sections whenever the post is about Steemit. While the statement could be a over statement, I am invested in Steem for the long term.
Steem is a platform, Steemit is an interface
While most people think of Steemit as a blogging platform, what they don't realise is that Steemit is just one app built on Steem. Think of it this way Steem is the platform and Steemit is just one interface for the platform. For example busy.org is an alternative interface for the same Steem platform. This example was just to show that Steemit is not the platform and Steem is.
Distributed content platforms
The number of services built on Steem platform will only increase with each passing day. In the next 12 months you will have websites which will claim to be
Distributed Image Hosting Service
Distributed Video Hosting Service
Distributed Facebook
Distributed Twitter
Distributed Quora
Distributed Upwork
The best part is that Steem can empower all of them. The power of Steem as a platform that can enable services is still undermined. Today we already have a POC for couple of above mentioned use cases or at-least the discussions have started.
Distributed Image Hosting Service -
Distributed Video Hosting Service - https://upload.view.ly/ and https://dtube.video/
Distributed Forums - https://beta.chainbb.com/
Distributed Facebook -
Distributed Twitter -
Distributed Quora - https://steemit.com/qa/@gokulnk/q-a-site-based-on-steem-brainstorming
Distributed Upwork - https://www.steemj.com/
Currency for user engagement
Considering all this Steem is undervalued coin/token. Steem can become the Currency for User Engagement on internet and any website or service which needs to keep their users engaged on the platform can use Steem. Even if any of these platforms doesn't take off, they will be replaced by other platforms that are better. Even if we feel that none of these platforms can complete with the existing giants, there is a fair chance that one of the popular platforms like Quora, Medium or Tumblr might adopt Steem to drive user engagement. When that happens Steem will shoot up.
Currency is undervalued
Just comparing the below two images should give you an idea of how under valued Steem is. With the number of users boarding the platform increasing on a regular basis, it will create a network effect. More people get to know about the platform as they can mine engaging on the platform. Those who see value in the platform will invest in the currency. Since many users of the platform will be invested in Steem and they will have Steem Power which they can't power down immediately it will take care of the price fluctuations in the short term and increase institutional investor confidence for the long term.
Predictions for Steem
I personally feel that in the next two months or so Steem will reach 4 USD and stay there for some time. Steem was indeed at 4 USD last July for a brief time. It might break this barrier if any of the platforms using Steem (Steemit, SteemJ, Dtube or the likes) go mainstream or if any of the main stream websites adopt Steem as the "Currency of Engagement on their site". When that happens Steem could reach to around 20 USD. For steem to go beyond that I think it should challenge Facebook and complete with it for stealing some of the revenue money Facebook is making. For that to happen I think there should be at-least 100 million users on Steemit.