Most people are struggling with the concepts and the material online doesn't help much. There's no clear description of a Steem Dollar and then Steem as a crypto in of itself. There's also some talk about different kinds of tokens within Steem. It's all very confusing and while the posts are interesting to read, the confusion is real.
On Bitcointalk, there's a debate and poll on Steem: https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=1427230.0