Nice article.

Mining for Bitcoin is strictly off the table for regular people unless you have Tens of Thousands of $$$. If you want to make immediate money with it and you don't have big bucks speculation is the only way and I can think of a lot better ways to put my hard earned money to work.

The great thing about Steem is that you can leverage time into money. Of course this isn't guaranteed but there is zero risk unless your free time is more valuable than the amount of Steem you hope to gain. Of course if you are having fun and you happen to make a couple of bucks at the same time, Steem is perfect.