I just now noticed that you did edit your post giving a reference to my original post. Thank-you!
I really wish that you had pointed that out to me as soon as you changed it.
As to the 58 cents,
that is the way that it works here on Steemit.
People will not vote on a piece that has been copied from other work, without credit given. Usually those posts get flagged invisible.
You can not base your experience with Steemit on this one post.
Also, it is completely normal for your first several posts to not be seen by a large audience on Steemit. It usually takes a long time to build up an audience.
However, I do go looking for posts tagged 'vaccines.'
As to you being dumped on, that was not the case.
The person being dumped on was somebody who used his flags to flag all of my comments, plus left an insulting comment to me about being a hall monitor.
Fortunately, I do not abuse my flag power. Not that flagging a copied post would be abusive, because that is my right and is what most people here in my shoes would have done. But I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and give them a chance to acknowledge their mistakes and fix them.
Like I said, I really wish that I had known earlier that you did try to fix your mistake by adding in a link to my original post.