The main difference is now people can be reward for what they are doing.

I'd like to add to this that that it is much easier to be active in the rewards system. While it's not impossible for me to send someone a buck for a twitter post they made or sponsor an author halfway around the globe,doing so with traditional currency is rare enough that it's newsworthy. On the steem blockchain, it's so common that it doesn't even register, except as a contrast to the traditional system.