Initially I was more focused on money as an attractive feature but I think censorship resistance can be equally attractive - if not more attractive for certain people who are tired of corporate controlled social media.

The worst thing it could happen, if steemit doesn't make it to a 100mn+ userbase, is that it will still keep the other networks honest - because once you have even 1 network that isn't censored, that's a tremendous advantage over the others who must then try to pretend they are not censoring (and will consequently have to reduce their censorship practice).

Additionally the algorithm of ranking and what's going on in sorting the news, is transparent and open source. That's extremely more transparent than what most social media practice. So that's one more area where steemit can keep the others (more) honest. If you see something "trending" here that is buried elsewhere, you'll know it's censored (elsewhere).