The Steem blockchain has been up and running with working products for a couple of years already, but everything's only just begun. As you said, the steem blockchain, at its current usage is far from being 'congested' and still has a long way to go, it seems like it is a solid blockchain technology.

Many other projects, such as Cardano (I have nothing against Cardano by any means) although have a solid idea as well as a talented and motivated team at the end of the day don't have a working project, or prototype to show. It's all based on speculation, and could easily go to zero.

Although steem could also go to zero, nothing's impossible, especially with crypto, with the existing practicality and usability of projects built on top of the steem blockchain, where many of the users aren't even aware they are utilising a blockchain technology, and the potential growth come mass adoption from other social media platforms, steem sure does have a bright future in my opinion.

Cheers Brandon!