When I think of steemit, I think of all the things it could be:

1. Social Network
2. News Outlet
3. Human Curated
4. Business Model

And then I think of all the things it is:

1. Social network
2. News Outlet
3. Human Curated
4. Business Model

From a business standpoint, Steemit is a great model. Curators get paid in shares to promote company products; Authors get paid in cash to create products; and overseers leverage the entire thing; The more weight a curator has, the more a product is promoted based on their recommendation. There's a great plus: Other companies can come in and use our service via our API.

The problems with this model are why I believe that Steem will ultimately fail -- unless they are addressed soon:

SteemIt is a Business

As a business -- there must be a constant income for said business to thrive. Sure, people buy and sell steem but the success of the business isn't contingent upon the success of the currency itself: If Steemit's servers were to fail today, steem could still be traded on the open market -- making SteemIt, a parasite to Steem. Parasites which aren't beneficial to their host are eventually dropped. The value in Bitcoin is that there is work involved in earning the coinage. Steem is just generated as the blockchain comes into being. It'd be different if the coins were generated based on the amount of total weight within the network -- that would have a bit of value backing it.

Humans Aren't a Credible Source of Judging Intrinsic Value

Because this is first-and-foremost a social-network, the items curated most are always going to be of a social nature and not of an empirical one. Funny cat videos will always get more likes than studies on Climate Change. This translates into a poor product value because the product serves no purpose, other than to make the user feel good for 5 seconds. The user will ultimately -- within a few years after the general public gets wind of this site -- walk away with no knowledge and no accomplishment in their life.

No New Energy

The third law of thermodynamics infers that in a closed system, energy will always run from the most energetic to the least energy position. Without a constant source of recharge, the energy eventually dissipates into the void. The business model is great but external systems which rely on our APIs, get no value. They are the lesser point of energy and thus, will reap value off of us without putting anything (valuable for us) back into the system. Worse, we've created a model where they get nothing of value for doing business with us. Sure, you can create a site with our API but, what do you get in return for doing that? You don't get company shares. You don't get higher payouts. You just perform a service, catering to our users, for free.

Conclusion

If SteemIt continues with no work to currency backing, and no benefits for satelite companies served (as well as no price for service), it will be a system completely at the mercy of charitable and wilful almage. Its business model will be of a philanthropic nature eventually.