i learned today that it doesn't matter how good your posts and content is but it matters if some big whalle is following or upvote you. You can bust your ass off with writing, paying for proofreading and retouching photos and you will get 3cents when on the other side some chic will show a pic of her new purse and boom 200$ for brilliant post.
It is important for self-esteem, because it can effect on your writing. It is crucial to understand, it is not because of your writing or your photos, which may be better than most of the other photos up here. It is just that you don't have a whale who would upvote you and expose on trending list.
My approach is that I will keep posting and continue my work, but for a loooong time that is not possible. I am praying for whales and some alghorytms will be presented when 1.0 will be relased. Beacuse that is a big problem and it could effect on Steemit. Now there is one Hajein and then will be in every category 10 of them and that is it. All others will swim far away and write bad content. Why bad? BEacuse if you don't get reward you don't work good. Simple
What you're saying is partially true. To make good money from your posts, you need to get the attention of some big players. But that's only going to happen if you write quality content.
You can use Discord and Steemit chat to get to know more people (including whales)