I appreciate your kind words and I know exactly what you're talking about. The thing is, that I'm building my audience and I'm trying to support my readers by giving them inspiration, courage and motivation, so they can publish posts and/or replies too. - Which ultimately makes Steemit a better place. (A high quality place that is).
However, it's kind of hard to encourage my readers (the right way) to write amazing quality content, when they don't feel satisfied about the actual amount of people they'll reach. - No matter the rewards.
The money is not the problem here. The amount of actual readers are what bothers me a bit.