You know, I looked at your comment and was almost TL;DR. Thank the Pond Gods I did read it! It seems like I've discovered a kindred spirit. To expand on your comment:
Yes, I've seen great posts with great engagement (over yonder, o'er the hilltop) - I've also seen terrible circle jerk masturbatory excrement masking as 'great writing' by large stakeholders which then a loyal bunch of worshippers come and pay their respects with a 'thoughtful comment' to which they receive a crumb off the king's table - I've then seen these posts cause the writer to believe they are indeed AMAZING! and continue to write such trollop and continue to get rewarded for it.
This is one of the dangers of 'Building a Following', especially on a platform that's sole draw is Money.
I saw the same thing in the Open Source community. (FOSS) it seems to draw in all the zealots who, in their irrational excitement, elevate the movement, in this case, Hive, to some exalted position whereby anyone who dares to question anything is accused of being a heretic or a Troll. Have a look at some of the comments, and you'll see those types: "You're wrong." umm? any chance of an explanation why? Any evidence or hard facts to demonstrate why it's wrong? How about expanding on why it's wrong? No! All they know is you attacked their beloved Hive. 🤦♂️
Everyone cites the bogeyman Justin Sun when they talk about STEEM, but some of us remember the early days when STEEM was fun and a system-wide community with lots of support groups trying to get folks accounts into a healthy state. These days on Hive, it seems to me that the Clan system has taken over. Try tagging a post about cows in splinterlands or maybe leofinance and watch the hounds rip you to pieces. Getting your post under as many noses as possible is almost becoming impossible unless you are in at least one of the Clans. It reminds me of school and my school house. I was in Faraday, but all the successful kids were in Chaucer. Sadly, I don't do Splinterlands (Don't get me started on that.) I know naff all about Crypto, so LeoFinance is off the cards for me, and these are the two major players on Hive. 😢