I've made almost $12,000.00 usd since August 2016. Steem was worth .50¢, most of my post were way under $10.00 for months, I survived the hardfork when the pool was drained too! I kept posting at least once a day and also I'm an artist, very niche work. Unlike many post that focus on cryptocurrency and Steemit, which rake in hundreds of dollars. You are right that the algorithms for payout is screwed, do a search. There is or was a lot of discussion about changing rewards. I'm not tech savvy so I can't go into detail.
But I do have to say, $12,000.00 is more than I made on FB or wordpress, and I still own my paintings!
That's awesome, and congratulations.. Really, that's fantastic! But my grievance isn't about blogging or the potential payoff for blogging. My wife had a post bring in almost $140 the other day. That's cool.
My grievance is with the curating. What about the people, like myself, that want to participate and prosper but aren't talented with writing? The potential with curating has been misleading. So essentially, steemit is for bloggers to curate other bloggers and if you don't blog, we don't have anything to offer you other than some good reads. That's how it seems to be.
The curating trail only pays well if you have enough steempower. I'm slowly getting there and I will start seriously curating. You have several ways to make it curating, join a guild or curating trail, buy your sp, build your sp like I've done. I'm going to use a bot to follow my favorites. Many of my favorite bloggers are not high on rewards and payouts. They have potential or are ignored because the rewards pool is only so big and curators like to vote on established content creators. Have you talked with @jlufer, he is one of the most prolific commenters on Steemit. I can't figure out how he does this and stay so kind and personal....
thats impressive, great motivation for me to keep posting!
The work adds up, but it is tough going in the beginning, most of us can't buy our way in, aren't gifted bloggers, and aren't gifted with a Steemit network of whale friends. So one drip at a time the bucket fills up....