people of color - POC.
As a person of colour, I stay out of identity politics.
In my experience, people generally look for a range of personal and useful content and people have to also remember that i this day and age, most people don't read poetry at all, so it is strange to expect it to consistently earn on a tech-oreientated platform. It doesn't mean it can't earn, but it will likely not attract large stake consistently as those with large stake just aren't interested in it and I think it is wrong to expect them to be. However, there are curation projects that do look for and find poetry and art - but it is unlikely to ever be a consistent earner for one account.
There are no penalties to small actors that I know of.
But, what about all the actors that never made it into a movie at all - all the artists that never sell one painting or poets who will forever be in obscurity - with every master, there is likely tens of thousands of amateurs that will never make a dollar.
The upvote curve created ghettos that are very difficult to get out of.
I think the ghettos have always been here - it is often where the abusive end up.
I completely understand that poetry doesn't have a large appeal and is unlikely to make much, but that upvote curve pretty much wiped out all earnings on poetry. Unless @curie or a poetry lover with clout (lol) also comes along, my upvote on a great poem is of no value at all.
There may be some usefulness in the upvote curve, I certainly have seen that many of the platform's big shots think it's a good thing and defend it vociferously, but the math at the low end has made it nearly impossible for newbies and small accounts to make anything at all. I'd like the mathematicians to take a look at that function's graph down around the origin to see what I'm talking about. We want to onboard people, but that upvote curve has made it impossible to get any traction, and is turning people off. Just try explaining it to someone new to see what I mean.