If that were true I would say, "What's your point?" -- But it's not true.
The key to making a lot of money on Steemit is "the ability to bring a lot of new people into the community - particularly new people who buy their way to power. === This is done by having a big influence on other social networks like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, etc...
If Oprah joined Steemit today she would make hundreds-of-thousands of dollars per post - not because of the content of the posts or because a bunch of minnows are upvoting her posts or because she kisses whale-ass.... It's because of her outside influence.
If she's happy and she goes on TV and tells everyone they should join Steemit because they can make hundreds of thousands of dollars per post then the investment in Oprah pays off, BUT (BUT).... the minnows never realize.... they're not Oprah.
And so, in a way, whales here on steemit can also be viewed as Oprah. There (and I'm just speculating here) ought to be a whale on steemit who has made his success from zero, just by joining early, without any initial investment.
Granted, it is easier for somebody rich to become even more rich through steemit (like your Oprah example), after all, that is how it always has been. Money is used to make more money. In this case, outside influence, conjoined with an extensive amount of money could be used to abuse the reward pool.
My point is that, without either commiting - in case of Steemit a reasonable amount, and in case of Bitcoin a large amount of money, it becomes only harder with time to make as big profits as the early adopters.
After all, there was once a time when nobody knew Oprah.
If I invest $100 in bitcoin, you invest $1,000 in Bitcoin and Donald invests $10,000 - and Bitcoin grows 10%.... I make $10, you make $100 and Donald makes $1,000.
The content of our money, or where we got it or how elegantly we invested... is meaningless.
I am absolutely certain there are thousands of Steemit users who make Oprah look like a zit on their asses. I am also certain there are thousands of John Lennons, thousands of Gandhis, thousands of Hemingways, etc., etc.,
If someone who is unknown and has never been on the internet came on, joined Steemit and posted a free cure for cancer....... ummmmm....
I think it's wrong for people like Jeff Berwick to go back to his audience and tell people they too can make $16,000 on their first Steemit post when most of them can write a much better post and will never make a dime.
It's not to say I'm unhappy with Steemit. I think the idea is brilliant, but there's a major imbalance and a lack of truth and lack of transparency.
I'm making more money than someone who just joined Steemit (unless they're net-famous or have a huge following), but it's NOT because my content is better than theirs and THAT is the lie we tell ourselves.
I must admit that I am loosing myself a bit in all this.
Are you saying that you don't believe good content is behind the sucess?
If new people joined Steemit and all they found was small-talk, spam and 3rd-hand porn they wouldn't hang around too long, so good content factors in that way.
So - I don't think this thread can be reduced to something as easy as "apples vs oranges." - There are certainly some whales who have great content and certainly some minnows who post 3rd-hand porn.
I completely agree!
I want to post a quick, little twist here.
You tell me what you think of this screen-shot.