Well. Having followers in steemit is not the same as having followers i.e youtube. In youtube, the followers have a much higher impact on the views (reads).
Why? The reason is very simple: it is a question of interface design.
When you open youtube ( as a website or as an app for your phone/table), the feed with the latest videos of your favorite youtubers is shown. In Steemit, when you open the website, the global trending list is shown, not your favorites.
It made seem an insignificant difference, but I think it is key for the problen you are describing.
In this instance my problem is not a matter of people finding the content, I'm receiving the same level of interaction as before. What has changed is before my articles would trend allowing new people to see them under the appropriate tags and now that doesn't happen. I get 20-40 upvotes make 2$ and some change, and that's it. Last week 40 votes would get my articles somewhere around 100$ and from there the article would perform and garner more upvotes and monetary value or not. Now I get a whole bunch of nothing. I would be surprised if I'm the only person experiencing this.