If you, like me, have been posting daily, really putting thought and effort into your posts, and getting excited when you see them start to get upvoted, only to have that excitement dissipate when you notice that the numbers by the dollar sign don't seem to go up with your vote count, you're not alone. The fact is, the way the Steemit system is set up means that, at the moment, votes don't necessarily correlate to payout.
The current situation
There's a simple reason for this, which, if you've paid attention to the way the system works, should be obvious. The financial weight that votes carry are dependant on the Steem Power held by the voter. The more Steem Power in the voter's wallet, the more money will be attached to their vote. That means you can have dozens or even hundreds of votes on your post, but if the majority of voters have very little Steem Power, you won't see much financial gain as a result.
My condolences
It works the other way too. If you've been wondering what the deal is with all this marine life (particularly whales and dolphins) that everyone's talking about, these are the people with lots of Steem Power - the ones with the greatest ability to make a post's value go up simply through the power of their vote. In the case of whales, these are generally people who joined Steemit very early (such as founders @dan and @ned), those who bought a lot of Steem on the market, or the lucky few who have made thousands on their posts. One vote from a whale is all it can take to add hundreds or even thousands of dollars to your post. Of course, most whales understand that with great power comes great responsibility, and won't upvote just anything - you have to impress them with good content!
A suitably impressed whale
The good news
At the moment, with Steemit still being in its infancy, and with the currently high influx of new users joining every day, the ratio of whales and dolphins to minnows (those with little to no Steem Power) is very low, meaning that very few people have the necessary Steem Power to really increase payouts on posts by upvoting. The good news, however, is that this ratio will increase as more new users start to accumulate Steem Power. This means that, as time goes by, more users will have the ability to increase payouts significantly with their vote, and the ability to make money off posting quality content will not be so dependant on a chance encounter with a whale, but will become more democratic instead. Eventually, we should see a higher correlation between vote count and payout - which means more Steem for everyone! So don't despair if you're not seeing the money yet - keep posting, curating, and contributing to the network, and you'll doubtless see the benefits in the future.
forgive me if I missed this--tend to start skimming when posts are more than one screen long--but what is the point of upvoting if one sees no value added to the post one voted for?
are we on the mills system here, where even though one's vote isn't worth a penny it does actually accrue some if only slight value? like a tenth of a penny?
if the answer is no then my first question haunts: why upvote if no value is added? for instance the upvote I just gave you--which churned and stirred and then blinked--and your value remained unchanged!?! why should I not unvote and "save" my votes for where I'll see genuine value accruing to the one I voted for?
thanx meantime for your thoughtful post--following you on this one
Good question. I hope it's the mil system like you described. I'm noticing that almost every comment on here, and also the article itself, have votes but no rewards. It seems like that would make it hard to increase your voting power. I was getting rewards until last night. I posted last night, received four upvotes, and it still said zero. But it's even worse on this article. This is a two year old article, has fifteen votes, and still nothing... strange. I know our votes increase or decrease depending on the available pool each day. I wonder if there's been a large amount used from the pool the past day or so. I'm glad to see my vote on your comment gave something. At least it's working :)
thanx angelfish for your note (and your vote!). only reason I even thought it might be on the mil system is that dTube videos show tenth-of-a-cent values. like $1.496 instead of just $1.49. won't pretend I know how this thing flies but I did notice that a remark I upvoted actually went UP on the page to a higher slot, so even if there's no apparent money accrual, upvotes count for something, physically moving responses up from the bottom so they're more likely to be seen. steem on!
Thank you for the information! I Just started and made like $25 on my first post and then started getting upvotes and no money... I'm still trying to figure out how the whole steemit platform works.. This was a helpful write up thanks again!
Very good explaination.. I have been discouraged by my lack of whale upvotes.. So I just decided to dedicate less time to seemit as a result... and I think that will be the trend... People join very excited, then post some hard work and content and find they are getting very little in reward, lose excitement and visit less.. I'm still going to try to post everyday.. but I'm not expecting much in return for now..
Following you from one of your more recent posts. Another great post. Keep going like this and you will be a whale soon as well :)
Us minnows must stick together :D
Thank you I feel really motivated now. I think it will be great in the long term. It was like that when I first started YouTube, no one was watching :-D but stuck at it and after two years I was able to start making a proper living. I will stick with this because I think the idea is fantastic and not controlled by the powers that be, instead we have the power - and lots of creativity. :-) Thanks again!
ooooo...really love your youtube videos...really helpful :)
I actually did pay @steemrobot to resteem....sadly didnt happen...
Thanks for this very informative and helpful post! i was getting frustrated and sad by not getting any reward. but now, thanks to you its more clearer to me now! :)
Thanks for such a useful post
cool post @generalspecific, very informative and usefull, many blessings for you!
this post still has $0 earning lol
Doesn't make it any less aggravating. I've been here nearly two years and I started regularly posting a couple months ago. Was doing fine for the first month, then the revenue dissipated. Most of my past STEEM earnings that aren't tied up with STEEM Power or anything stored in savings have been converted into Bitcoin Cash, but the decline in income from some weird changes in the algorithm makes things difficult when you have people on here who bring in hundreds of STEEM-related revenue writing garbage while your citizen journalist gets jack squat.
Thanks for this. I like this system because it actually encourages everyone to get involved with the community, not just to focus on their own profies.
Great article. Really motivates! I think the votes on this article show really well what you mean! 35 votes but no single SBD :P