A lot of people compare steemit.com to Facebook...and I think it's a sub-optimal way to look at things

I really hate that comparison. It puts in people's mind that they can just upload links or video without any effort in hopes to make a few SBD. I prefer to compare Steemit to Medium but even that falls short a bit.

would be to compare Steem with something like Google

I think this works to a degree since we are able to do so much on the STEEM blockchain. This still may give the 'average Joe' the wrong idea but with a bit of explaining why we see it like a new Google it will pan out better than the old Facebook comparison.

STEEM has a lot of maturing to do

For sure, but just as you said people are working to make it better everyday. Even I started to work on a STEEM project recently. There are so mean devs and programmers out there that are able to take this platform main stream.

Great post as always mate!
J. R.