Oh, I'm with ya.
and as far as this "The amount of work it takes to get noticed (not JUST on here) is disproportionate to the reward, whether that be economic OR simple gratification based entirely on "eyeballs reached."
you can get there...you get a small piece of the pie. If it's a large and growing pie then it's worth the effort. That IF is my concern here.
Many of us put in a solid effort in good faith on Steemit, and for us...the difference between Ned and Justin was un-noticable. So for OUR proposes these powers that where split a site in two...if they don't have a plan, and execute it, to make the user base grow here...they can say goodby to many of us. and what will they have then? I crypot fan club with a currency worth about as much as the Bolivar