I am fortunate that I can expect votes, but I don't take them for granted. I was pleasantly surprised by how many comments this post got in a few minutes, so it shows people do read my stuff. Although you have a lot of followers I wonder how many people see your posts. Unfortunately it's not all about quality. There is favouritism and cliques. Crap will get votes. Just how it is.

I can say I put in the work to build an audience with thousands of comments as well as the posts. I've done what I can to help lots of people. I do okay, but the hourly rate is crap.

I think we have to be honest about what goes on and don't pretend it's all unicorns and rainbows (or rainbow unicorns). Hive will always be the wild west, but that includes opportunities to do well.