You sound like a doubting thomas. A negative nancy. I'm not making this stuff up. I've been here long enough to watch good posters excel, and build their wallets. I've also seen scammers who try to cheat the system on quantity instead of quality.
A good poster will get lucky on a $20 post... and build from there.
I see a bad posters, who will continously make 20 junk posts at 1 cent each. (yes, the odd one will make $5 or $10)
Eventually the good poster works a lot less than the junk poster, and that is always the case.
I can't stop junk posters. Want to know how myself, learned this?
I once made $2,000 USD from an FAQ in the early days when steem was first launched. The laptop I am typing to you came from my steem earnings. Want to know how many "30 second junk posts" I've made in my lifetime on steem? ZERO
I don't have to convince everyone that good hard work pays off, because I'm living proof of it, and so are many others.
Believe me, your example, that someone continuously makes $8 for 30 second posts is an abnormality and not the trend. It just doesn't happen that way long term.... and if that person keeps doing it, whale bots will find that account and downvote them into oblivion.
To put it into basic terms. I've seen junk posters get to reputation level 60 and after they're caught, they get downvoted to reputation level -5 and all their posts are hidden with no chance of earning anymore.
There are teams out there looking for these people. So while they might be laughing all the way to the bank today for a short time.. they lose in the end, and have to start all over.
It's just better to make an honest effort and stick with it.
I have to follow you to learn from you. You are really intelligent @intelliguy. You have a new disciple and that's me.