This will all change with SMT, if it ever comes out. I can guarantee that.
of course, quality is subjective and it doesnt matter who the market is a person will profit if they give what the market wants. In this case we're talking about the whales. Seems typical to me.
I guess it's really because the steem network effect hasn't reached a size where it mirrors the mainstream zeitgeist. We're only less than a million users big, taking into account the alts and the bots and the ghost account. That's pretty small for a content platform, much less a social media.
I can see how forward thinking steemians can win though. Produce quality content AND THEN market it all over the net, Medium, personal website, build a personality and run ads on the bigger social media. Then monetize it by drawing them to any of the Steem platforms instead of begging for Patreons.
Beats circlejerking in the long run.
And of course that has been your message all along.