When I started I was able to build a following by commenting volubly, as is my wont. However, the halving of author rewards, the dodgy VP curve, and the dust threshold now make that a pretty pointless endeavor. While, and don't take this personally (I've been trying to figure out how to comment on this event without sounding graceless, but I am sure you are aware I am against votebots, and always have been, so do not lament that yours is no longer selling votes) I am pleased that bots are no longer viable, I am inconsolable that engagement has been similarly dispelled.
For newbs without a following, comments are the best way to meet folks that like your style, and I have noticed engagement has fallen off since HF21.
I am sure you are not delighted to no longer be able to deploy @buildawhale, but I hope you are able to personally interact with folks more now, and find that more personally rewarding, if less so financially.
One thing that has been done in the past is that moderate delegations raising the VP of favored curators and authors so they are better able to distribute more Steem have been undertaken. My recollection of the experiment that became known as the Stewards of Gondor was that it was very successful. Many lesser known but high quality authors were encouraged by votes via those delegations.
A couple dozen whales with almost all the stake simply can't effectively curate out all the rewards from the pool, and such delegations enable that curation to be offshored to known and responsible parties. [Well, they can and will, but what they can't do is read 10k posts and curate informedly. I expect either they'll end up with crews of panderers that get their votes regularly, or something along the lines of moderate delegations will solve the problem.]
Folks like you. Given the higher curation rate, nominal decentralized delegations may return nominally, if not competitively with bots. Give it thought, or tell me to get bent. Whatever you think is appropriate.
I'm sure this is a trying time for you, and I am glad to see you are as sanguine and accepting of this turn of events as you could be. I hope this is the beginning of a people centered paradigm you are eventually able to look back on and be happy it happened, because you're better off, and so is Steem.
I guess that's what most all of us want.
I actually engage quite a bit, on a slow day I make 4 comments, and on a busy one 51.
Not at all, I think hf21 has given Steem a chance to survive, the path it was on was doomed to fail. As I said many times in the past, I rather have no bid bots, but I do believe in promotion, every platform has it. When I was new it was impossible to be seen and many times I just wanted to quit.
I always felt if there was going to be bid bots, Steem is better if I run one. The SP I had was going to be used for a bid bot regardless if I did it or not. I put a lot of effort in running @buildawhale more ethically than others. I prevented a lot of garbage from being rewarded with my blacklist and spent over a year doing daily curation digests showcasing the best content that used my service. These both cost me a lot of time and money which no other bot chose to incur.
It wasn't perfect, even hf21 isn't perfect.
See? We are perfectly in agreement.
Ok, so maybe not, but I didn't come here to disagree with you. I 'spose I just can't help it. I'm apparently disagreeable. I'm sure we can agree on that.