I hear what you are saying, and your content is definitely unvalued IMO. It does take a few months to get your head around steemit, and how to maximize your post visibility (to the right people). Please look at @mountainwashere 's post here, he raises some excellent info.
Your 2 example posts actually highlight good and bad aspects of Steemit.
Firstly, the bad is that you can pay the "whales" a lot of money to upvote your posts (in this case the $1000 post). This means that people willing to pay can have their posts upvoted to trending, and hopeful catch more upvotes to amplify their return. It's quite possible that author spent close to $1000 to get the article upvoted via "bidbots".
Regarding your $49 post it was upvoted by steemstem curation (i.e the steemstem curators liked your post). When this happen's it triggers a curation trail, which triggers users who belong to that curation trail to autovote your post. The existence of these curation communities is a saving grace for Steemit IMO. Keep in mind the curation teams have specific criteria when curating and it is wise to ask questions (for instance steemstem is on discord, and there is a general chat group for that). You can also get involved with those communities by leaving (good) comments on people's posts. They will get to know you after a while.
Anyway, have a think about what I am saying :) Btw have you considered Medium and the partner program?
Hi Terry, I wish I had more time available to get involved, but I am spread pretty thin online. I've never been a chat room type of guy. I always keep chat functions turned off on the various social media sites I participate in. I have an aversion to it - it's probably some form of social anxiety I guess. I know that probably hurts me in some ways, but it is what it is.
I'm not going to leave Steemit entirely, but I am no longer to spend the better part of an entire day writing an article and composing it for next to nothing. I can publish those same articles in other venues and get more tangible feedback and possibly some sales referrals.
I think part of the "problem" with Steemit currently is the relatively small active user base. Hashtag discovery can net a lot of hits on a busy site like Instagram or Twitter, but not so much here.