Exactly, and even if it gave one the 'income' of a small part time job at a cafe, say, then wouldn't you rather write and share your thoughts for some 'tip money' then just for free or actually slinging coffee? Who knows?
The human animal is an odd creature and the way they are 'formulated' today BY social media is a sort of set up to give them high expectations with low results. I think it is part of the system that keeps people hooked on it in the first place, but maybe I'm just crazy thinking that.
And of course if someone was an early adopter or has the right 'connections' they might be killing it on here, but that doesn't mean everyone can't enjoy it, right? I happen to really like the art collective on here. Being an artist and an introvert I honestly get something from this place that is not monetary, in that I feel a good connection with other creatives and I feel I have genuine 'chats' with people. I mean I suppose they could all be bots or just 'playing the game' but it's working for me, so I'm happy :)
As a fellow introverted artist, I really need to look more into the artistic end of Steemit. So far, I haven't really explored much of that angle; I also work with art daily through our small independent art gallery here.
A lot of what I get from Steemit is also non-monetary... a return to the kind of "Social Blogging" that was very popular around 1999-2005... I missed that format, and Steemit was a very timely arrival, in that sense.
I know, I'm sort of feeling that old school blogging love coming back because of steemit. I did a blog/project in 2009-11 when really blogging was just sort of beginning to peak out, but I had such a loyal band of followers and we'd look forward to our 'chats' in the comment section everyday, then it seemed to just all be eclipsed by the quick pointless quips of Facebook and then the emoji's and memes. Oh well. Maybe blogging will continue to come back with platforms such as steemit.