You are way overthinking this. Just being part of the STEEM community is enough. You don't have to be a coder or bringing in institutional money. Be here. Interact. Even just lurk and upvote. That's enough. (Those other things are great if you have the skills and interest to pursue them though).

If you want economics talk:

Value is derived from the subjective utility of a good or service. By creating marginal interactions as part of the community, you increase the utility for all members of the community thus increasing the marginal value on the part of all users who interact with STEEM.

Said another way, what gives the social network value is the use of the social network by lots of people.