I would not be able to eventually get 1 cent steem

This would be expensive as fuck in a few weeks.

there will not be any 20 cent steem

Indeed you will never see that price ever again, certainly not with this insane inflation.

the steem token was never meant to be traded on exchanges for profit

Without speculation steem is going nowhere, hype and speculation is everything in crypto.
Ethereum managed to pass 1.8 billion market cap with zero working app, only HYPE.
If steem was a speculative tool it's price would probably 5-10$/steem right now with all the new projects going . Whales would be millionaires instantly. Smooth would be retired already!
Not kidding

It's working great.

If steem is working great can you explain why the price is lower than when it wasn't working at all?