You needing to trust the website will exist for the coins to hold any value, while true, is not the same as having to trust the currency will work as a currency

You needing to trust the website will exist for the coins to hold any value, while true, is not the same as having to trust the currency will work as a currency - i.e. that what is yours is yours, and the steemit owners can't simply wipe out the database or change their numbers arbitrarily. I'm not saying this model is foolproof, and perhaps you're right and steemit (or app specific coins) will never be a big hit because of that. My point was just to show an example of a different kind of business model / monetization strategy made possible because of the blockchain, and there will certainly be others.