Even if, steemit eventually dies, I could see the idea living on. Imagine a world were people got paid to contribute to Facebook or Instagram. That's part of what's propelled steemit so far forward in my opinion. The alignment of interests of all parties. Shareholders want a return on investment. For websites that typically means they need more users, more engagement, more more more. For consumers they want to get something out of it too. Business owners want profit. Concepts like steemit align all of these values. That's why it has so many users. The users recognize the value that they're getting from engaging, posting, and interacting with the ecosystem as a whole. Steemit in exchange gets a huge number of users. In other words, if this thing dies I could still see the idea living on in another form