What is the Rhym or Reason Behind the value given to posts on Steemit

So I really enjoy the Steemit community and the platform as my experience has gone so far but I'm having a bit of difficulty understanding exactly what is going on. Perhaps someone could shed some light.

I'm new here, at least in the sense that I created an account back in May of this year but didn't really do much because my laptop crashed and did have the login info for the account I created. Either way I'm here now and want to learn more as I become part of the community, but like I said I guess I have some questions.

I've noticed that some posts that have a lot of high quality content don't always seem to get all that much attention. By the same token and with no criticism intended I've noticed a post of a picture of a hotel room or something with no content somehow earned a whopping 50 bucks so my question is: is this user very popular or is it luck? What are some things that influence these values.

Again, I ask not out of jealousy but curiosity. It's similar to watching cryptocurrency markets, another place that you see major moves that seemingly have no rhyme or reason or at least no apparent reason for that movement. When you see these moves in the stock market it's relatively easy to see what may have caused this fluctuation. Maybe there was a big earnings report or in the case of a drop perhaps that company suffered a need to recall a product.

Now I know there are sometimes obvious reasons why a cryptocurrency does this perhaps the network was forked or hacked but for the most part it's not all that clear.

My Guess

It makes the most sense to me that a person earning large rewards are simply more established and have a larger following. So I accept that as the answer when I come across a post by a person who seems according to the number next to there name to be rather new, but has gained relativity large rewards for a post and that logic goes out the window.

What are some of the main reasons for what appears to be a bit random?
Is it the time of day or night?
Is it the number of followers a person has?
Is it the content?
Is the the tags?
All of the above or non of the above?

Maybe you've had the same question and discovered the answer?

Thanks for any feedback and light on the subject for a new user.