Even when Steem & SBD were riding high, I never considered cashing out. I did not bother to open an account at a coin-exchange so I could convert Steem. If I had, now I would probably begin powering up a bit each month.
Regardless of the added incentive of earning crypto, steemit is simply a good platform/blog. I'd like to see more flexibility (like one has in a wordpress blog) and hopefully that will happen at some point -- but that's a different topic.
In any case, none of us can see the future, but there is certainly a possibility that some unexpected event may eventually trigger a vast expansion of our platform -- or (I certainly hope not) it might implode.
Meanwhile, I'm patiently crossing my fingers, and glad you are offering some hope.