I think it is the second, that people just havent discovered steem or are thinking if they do know it (but not to much) that it wont take off. Time will be a crucial factor here. Give it a few years and we'll see more and more alts becoming adopted to buy/sell stuff with just like bitcoin did. Also 1year and 9 months is still young right? let it grow out to the beautiful strong horse it will become. Soon enough they will discover it by people spreading the word on all kinds of media. The world is just discovering the cryptoworld. Give it some time :)