they are told they can make money here.
Bulls eye!
I bought an e-book just to know about existence of Steemit and that e-book talks about earning in two weeks more than enough for the author's monthly rent. However, the author did not mention how long she has to establish herself on the platform before being able to get high upvotes. There was not even mention about bid bots, etc. Anyway, there is indeed a downside to everything. We just need to find a way to turn it around.
Of course thing are different when Steem is worth $8 instead of $0.3, lol.
And if you delegate alot of SP to a profitable bid bot, or sell your votes when the value of Steem.is high, I assume making a truckload of money is (or was) possible indeed.
Fortunately,the platform.has something to offer that is a lot more valuable than monetary rewards: the comunity-spirit here is priceless :0)