Your grit and effort paid off in the long run, but you were also lucky that Ned and Dan were more active on the platform. Today we have a slightly different scenario I believe. Most users with large accounts interact mostly with their close friends ignoring the rest. There are few exceptions obviously and luckily there are some communities like curie or steemstem that are working hard to help new users. Probably now you find yourself more on the other side of things, and a comment or a vote from you could mean the world for a new user.