@papa-pepper, congratulations on the 13,000 posts milestone-- and kudos to you for being a superb "ambassador" for Steemit (and Steem).

Personally, I feel it's extremely important to "pump the community," because a vibrant and active Steemit "society" tells the potential investors that "there's something there" behind the coin. Most alt coins are "just the currency," here we have something else; something more.

What's also HUGE is that we have a "soft entry point" into alt currencies for people who might not otherwise consider such things. Let's be real, the Average Joe Facebook doesn't know squat (nor cares) about cryptocurrencies... but if we being Steemit to the world not as a make money venue, but as a be a blogger and gain co-ownership through your contributions venue, that's something pretty much everyone can wrap their head around. And if the developers can add more features that run from within the Steemit interface, this will be that much cooler as a selling point.

By extension, with a large and vibrant and enthusiastic community an investor is more likely to go "Wow, I should get in on this-- this could be like a pre-IPO Facebook!" which would boost the price of Steem... to the moon? But that requires US-- the community-- to be invested in creating that community.