The price of steem is not the issue, just a coincidence in this case. It is about traffic: possibly many new users, possibly the explosion in various bots (some useful, others less so). Every action has a small cost (in Vests) which is why, ironically, one cannot even power up SP if needed, but have to wait to be able to do so until allocated bandwidth is above that already used.

I really think we need to see more information on the dashboard so that we can see any potential problems coming and change behaviour to avert them - just as in online games.