You described your position quite well. I respect your statement and sorry to say I can't agree with you with all of your logic. I can't blame you or me for that. Everyone has their own perspective and thinking process.
Do you know when I felt successful? When I saw your comment. I wrote this post for folks like you. Clearly, you didn't get the motivation, but at least you noticed it!
How did I get big votes from 4-5 big account holders? Do you think I earned this in a day? If you think so then you know nothing like John Snow! :/
I started my blogging journey like you through blockchain-based social media Steemit back in September 2017. Today is 15th July 2020. I spent almost 3 fuking years to get upvotes from big accounts. Yeah, my posts weren't valued like yours, I didn't have anyone to guide me. But don't you think I waited enough! And yeah after proper guidance of some veteran bloggers, I got the right path on Hive.
Hive has brought me back, at least partially. I am trying to reinvigorate myself, but I still see a lot of the same behavior with a whole lot of people earning 0.63 HIVE on all of their posts, while a select few get these 50 HIVE payouts like this post is lined up for.
Yeah forget about Steem, we're in Hive now. I can guarantee that the Hive is not centralized like Steemit! I am a real-life example. I can proudly say that I earned it. Nobody came to me with big votes, I brought them to me by my skills. You can easily compare my posts before 2 months then now, and you'll understand how I changed myself, how I improved my qualities!
I was also depressed like you and questioned - Why are some shit posts getting more rewards than good posts?
At that time experienced users didn't hide in the shadow. They came forward to answer my questions, even on Discord! I never saw this type of engagement on Steemit. I can show you, 15-20 new people, only from our native community @bdcommunity, who got their success on Hive within a month!
This is the success of Hive (Except very few communities, I can agree with you on this) which you can't see on other platforms. Yeah, there are some flaws! As Hive is still new it has lots of issues that need to be corrected! But within a few months, Hive already crossed Steemit in every aspect. I am not saying this as I am earning, I am saying this because newbies with potentials are making good money as well.
I don't want to mention any newbie or anything here. I will urge you to go to the trending and hot page again. Check how whales and curation trails (like @ocd, @bdvoter, @discovery-it, and so on) are helping minnows to become popular. I can argue with you all day on this topic. But I guess you can understand what I am trying to say.
Thank you for your comment. I loved it as you freely described your state. Just followed you. See, according to my "Start Building Relationships" theory, we are making progress already! ;)
a bit random but from my previous comment in this post:
This is also a reason I was very vocal about some downvotes on "overrewarded content" during the pump to $1. Even though I realize they will start to happen a lot more each pump people shouldn't just jump the gun based on numbers. I'm also sick of people saying "but it's at $x rewards!!" as if they forget that 50% goes to curators and the thing that reminded me from your sentence is that many have worked hard for these pumps, many don't want to power down and continue posting like usual instead and many deserve to enjoy the pump and higher rewards for a little while at least because they've worked hard for them and hive like most other alts has been low for a majority of time.
Isn't it great that we can have a conversation with respect even from opposing viewpoints?
I did not mean to belittle the effort you have put in to getting to where you are, I can definitely relate to your journey! And I have huge respect for your efforts to publish in english when it is not your native language. Your posts are clear and concise, and I could never even put together a sentence in any language that I am not native to. Mad respect for that.
I've always advocated that the best way to build your network is in other people's comments. There is too much in the Recent feed to wade through for useful content discovery to take place there, unless you are a curator who is making a job of such actions (I was once a curator for @curie, I know the struggle of scrolling through all the feeds). So you go to people's posts and comment and hopefully get a reaction and build a relationship.
But then your own Blog has to be something that they are interested in so they follow and continue the conversation in your own blog. I think here is where you have done a masterful job of picking your niche. Writing about Hive, Blockchain, SEO, these are topics that a lot of the whales are interested in. But if everyone wrote about these topics, HIVE would be a pretty boring place. Where are the big stake holders who want to read about daily life, sports, parenting, or other more social based content?
I think part of my problem is I am old, (said tongue in cheek) and I don't adjust to change easily. I will be the first to admit, I don't understand communities enough, and am too set in my ways to learn. It seems like a lot of success is coming from the community accounts, like your @bdvoter. Maybe I should try to start a community for Hivers in Tennessee, because a USAVoter would be way to broad to still do any content discovery.
You've done a great job, I am not trying to belittle that at all. My key point here I suppose is the disclaimer that "individual results may vary". For every account like yours that has found success, there are those who have not. But to wrap it back around to your YouTube analogy, for every YouTuber making a living posting videos there are hundreds who have an audience of 10, not everyone is cut out for success on YouTube, or on Hive. That doesn't mean we should stop trying, it is just means that some people won't ever get discovered, and that is okay.