SteemIt is a business indeed, but one that is run in a very bad way. Personally, I would never invest money in a platform I haven't tried out first. And they don't give people a chance try it out and stay long enugh to become a part of the community before they decide to invest or not.
If there is no new blood coming in, the busines won't survive...
And delegating to newcomers is always a risk. After all, you don't know whether they are 'website-hoppers' or really want to discover SteemIt. Also, every single one arrives here because they are told they can make money here. When they finally get in, they find out that the payout is terrible and on top of that they need to learn so many new things that it can be really overwhelming. They have every reason to leave again.
Fortunately, for the delegation, it's not a big deal when they leave. I simpy undelegate and I have the SP back in my wallet in 5 days. It's not that I risk losing money :0)
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)