I took a look at your profile, and I have a sincere question for you. Do you really think your content deserves $100 payouts (in terms of rewards, not USD). We're talking about sometimes $500-600 per a post.
To put it bluntly, no - I think all payouts on the platform are too high right now. Moderately successful authors like myself, who were earning a part time wage before the STEEM and SBD increase, are now earning Doctor's money. Having said that, I'm a professional markets writer with a couple big forex brokers as clients - last year I was charging $100 an hour and was planning on upping my rate to $150 this year. The going rate for a freelance writer in 2017 was $900 per day. When SBD was at $1, I wasn't earning anywhere close to what my expertise gets me in real life.
I think this is the problem - we are just going from one extreme back to the other and the other isn't enough to retain excellence in any field. Having said that, STEEM is literally 6x higher now and if the witnesses handle this properly, they will be able to deflate SBD without too much collateral damage.
As far $500 - $600 a post, I think I got lucky with one last week - @v4Vapid and @adsactly dropped by - loving it.
Do you buy those upvotes? Or do you have genuine supporters of your content that help you reach there?
I used MinnowBooster a few times last week because internal STEEM price was lagging the market. At current prices I'm guaranteed 100 per post - I blogged, networked and grinded my arse off last year to get here. Due to the SBD and STEEM price, as well as the holiday season, I've been trading a lot less than I used to - this means less chart and trading content. My calls on Ether, Bitcoin, EOS last year made my followers a ton of money. I've been enjoying taking photos lately, I'm not that good at it I don't think personally, but I seem to get really engaging comments and positive feedback.
I think your blog is a great example of why lower SBD is going to be screwed. You are already not earning enough from your blogging, not through low calibre content, but lack of reach and poor content discovery on Steemit. Your posts die, it's not that people don't like them, it's that people don't see them in the first place. On top of that, your returns on investments like Smartsteem are going to go down dramatically.
I don't mean to argumentative, but there are going to be some things that wont be taken lightly.
Come on you weren't that bad mate :)
Why not just pay them in STEEM instead?
If SBD were one USD again, not only would the whale support I've arranged for air-clinic (from auto-votes I would have otherwise got), not be enough to cover the doctors' time - I'd need those votes for myself again. I wouldn't have enough disposable income to even consider philanthropy (without taking on freelance work again).