Thanks for a thoughtful post. I'm not too experienced on steemit yet, so my opinion may not be well informed, but here's my 2 cents.
I suspect that the combination of a 1 week payment window and the speed at which posts stop getting engagement discourages a lot of people from posting evergreen content. Why spend 20+ hours creating an in-depth masterpiece, only to watch it disappear into obscurity within an hour of posting?
I'm not sure how to fix this problem, but maybe something like an algorithm that linked similar posts and showed them on the side whenever you view an article. This would give older posts another chance to be seen, although under the current system the author still wouldn't get any additional rewards.
As it now stands, steemit is inherently an inward-focused platform by nature of the fact that outsiders can't upvote or follow unless they sign up for an account, which most of them are not going to do. So that means a lack of incentive to attract them.
Because if you wont do that, your following wont increase.. it happens to everyone.. consistency is the key.. a lot of people think like that.. hell.. even i used to think like that.. so at one time during my steemit journey, i started posting average content and memes and immediately i started to lose followers. After 3 average / meme posts, 21 of my followers left me.. so i realized that for me to gain a substantial audience on steemit, i will have to post quality content all the time. Even if that means many of posts going down the drain..
about your older posts... you can always re-write them and make a new post out of it once you have gained adequate audience. But dont fo self plagiarism.. give your new post another angle and always mention the link to your previous post ..
Do you have a facebook account? Youtube? Instagram? Twitter? Linkedin accounts? I believe you do.. why? Because they created a market.. when you generate enough quality content here, people will start to see the importance of platform and will join it..
Hope my answers have helped you in some way...
Thanks. For the record, I wasn't talking about posting half-ass crap. Some people do that, and even make money at it. Personally, I only post well-written quality content. I use my real name and picture across the internet. If I post crap anywhere, it affects my reputation, so why would I do that?
I'm talking about a different level. If I spend 20+ hours on a 3,000 word in-depth masterpiece, it goes on my personal blog, even though I won't make any money from it there. Why? Because I know that it will stay there for years and providing lasting value to the world. When I write for steemit, I write quality stuff, and my followers appreciate it. But I'm posting more frequently, and writing shorter, less in-depth articles than I do for my personal blog, because that's the kind of content that steemit is designed to support.
By the same token, although I put a ton of effort into the articles I write for my personal blog, I still spend much less time on those articles than on writing a book. Why? Because a book takes a year or even multiple years to write, and will provide lasting value to the world for many years. It doesn't make sense to post entire books on a blog, and it doesn't make sense to post 3000 word in-depth evergreen articles on steemit. If anyone is posting such articles here, I haven't seen them yet. I'm just saying there's a good reason for it. It's the nature of the platform. That might change, but that's how it is right now.