Thanks! I think the witness route is feasible only if you are are true IT expert. Even then, you have "blog incessantly" and spend a lot of time growing a huge following, which is detrimental to doing high quality work in my business.
So I just sort of disregard the "payment" system here.
In my business, having 'deep dialogues' with a few people is far more helpful and interesting than having "5,000 followers". After all, there are lots of excellent professions where one professional has only a few clients (less than 100) at any given moment.
This is true I do feel like the spammers are winning a bit at the moment but as the system matures who knows it's still quite a nice way to earn a passive income as you might already have a lot of material which you can just release on here but it is very time consuming for very little reward.
Thank you @lestatisticien for these insightful words..
"Having deep dialogues with a few people is FAR more helpful and interesting than having '5,000' followers.."
Part of the reason this platform enticed me was the opportunity to go on explorative journeys to not only find one's own voice here but to find other voices of resonance which I believe will support the steemit ecosystem in the long run, for those in it for the long haul..
Thanks @sonofthesoil, and your insightful comment prompts me to follow you!
I deeply feel that we are on the right track. We can have a great and influential Steemit with a collection of several dozen/hundred small communities doing their own thing.
It is too easy to forget that with in our inevitable 24-hour day, we can meaningfully interact with just a few people! So the trick is to find a good life with this limited opportunity.Cheers!