My first post was some goofy thing about the illuminati (well, with a real message behind it), and it got like 60 cents, then on my second post I got whaled and got $600+.
And at first I just thought "wow, I must be good at this" lol. Just lay off the illuminati stuff maybe. Then I learned more about how it all works and it started dawning on me how so much of the payout was cause a guy named Dan happened to roll thru.
But still a part of me is kind of expecting that I can just post stuff and make money, that the internet has finally found a way to reward me, and it took a few posts to be like .... nope, not that easy lol.
I think right now we're kind of in a "no man's land" period. If Steem is widely used and has all the features, then it's just social media, and you use it for that reason and it's easier to not think of the rewards (and not to expect them to ever be huge, as it levels out over more people).
Personally I like posting on the internet anyways. And without a big social media following, I feel like on here there's at least a chance something you post gains traction (on blogspot or twitter or something, it's much less likely that it gets shared and makes the rounds).
I think part of it is that whales know they have a better chance of encouraging the community to grow if they give newcomers a little extra push upward. I've made around 30 blog posts and only 4 have earned more than $0.40 lol. My first 5 posts had 3 of my top 4. Now I'm fortunate to have 40 followers, though only 2 or 3 with more than 1 penny's worth of influence. Steemit is giving me an excuse to do a little poetry, a little art, and a little autobiography. It's fun being part of the community and having the bonus of the rare chance that something will go semi viral.
I'm slowly trickling in as price continues to dip a bit , I'll try to get up to a penny or two for you :p
Haha thanks. I'm amazed with almost $4000 I'm only worth 2 cents per upvote. Crazy.