i feel that steem should first be a place for people that don't know a lot about crypto but want to learn and try (and ofcourse they are not traders or crypto whatever so they also have a community of whatever they are into)
It is early here so i don't want to search but i think i joined FB around 2006-2007 and i found 1 person that i knew. So i had an acc for i think at least 3 more years and it was just there. And they started 2004. so 6-7 years they were just another website.
But all the Average Person things that you wrote are on the spot.