That's a nice sentiment, but I think you might actually be wrong on this one. Hodling is good for stability, but if you hodling is still guessing the long-term tend. If you are certain that a certain coin if going up long-term, than you can certainly make some money along the way and it's going to be more than if you just buy and hodl.

Of course, while this is theoretically and technically the case, I really like the question you suggest we should be asking ourselves despite the fact that it applies only to steem. Steem allows us earn not by trading, but by being a valuable member of a community. But this does not apply to many of the other coins where all you can really do is trade or invest long term and hodl.