I understand a lot of your issues... Steemit is becoming a circle-jerk fest. Whales upvoting themselves instead of valuable content, & starting this bot or that to game the system and pull even more profit out of the pool.
It's becoming a game of "who you know"... Having a large following means nothing. You could have 2 followers, post nothing but memes, and earn WAY more than someone who works their ass off to write interesting material, because it's all in who upvotes you.
The mass populace is never going to join up and stay here if these types of shenanigans continue...
Agreed. Doesn't bode we for the average person looking at steemit for the first time wondering if they should stay.
And yes, it's completely about who you know... and how far you are prepared to go in sticking to their agenda.
Hopefully in time this will change...