It's a trend and it's fashionable to have a coin on your own :) Countries, communities, tribes, ... whatever. You need to have your coin to distinguish yourself, to be independent.

Go for Euro and you lost your independence. You are assimilated.

The major issue I have though is that there seems to be nothing backing up these tokens aside from people believing they are worth something and buying them to earn more of them.

Sounds strangely familiar to fiat money :)

These days, the worth lies in believing that something has value. Or in making PR, media schemes, fake news, ... whatever again, that something could have value.

Eh, time will tell. After inflation of tokens there comes the consolidation. Only those will real content and community behind them will survive.

Ps: who needs SMTs? Good devs at Steemit inc. could start developing something else. Like a decent frontend, for example :)

Ps2: #wewantmoretags #fiveisnotenough :)))