For some reason as Steemit is a niche, in a larger perspective, people easily forget (happened to me too) that it's not easy to be successful or noticed in social media, not here either. Some fitness celebrities in Instagram, for example: they didn't become famous just for taking a quick picture with phone and posting it for Internet. No, they make everything as appealing as possible with their pictures, some even photoshop and/or lie being natural despite using steroids. Not that I agree that screwing with the perception of the audience is a healthy way of being a celebrity but they still do the work that is required to be in their position. And well, people seem to like what they see, hence they become so followed.
But I don't think many of us think we can just take a picture and become famous like some Instagram celebs, well some might for sure, but most people have some sense of reality that you can't get a million followers just by snapping your fingers. But somehow the same thing is easily forgotten in Steemit. Instead we expect that just by putting some text out there, similarly to putting a decent picture in Instagram, would grant us large upvotes.
This might be a key to being a celebrity but, even that takes a lot of work to pull off.
It could be that the promise of money is there from the start. Wen I say promise I mean expectation. Plus, you can see how much others are making.