Thanks for that "novel" and your words.
It´s exactly how I feel. I spent more than a half year and got up to level 42. That´s not a lot and I still feel like seaweed. But it´s so hard to get upvotes for good content.
I tried some bots and invested some SBD in bots and promoting. The result was more or less nothing.... A lot of upvotes from accounts with low SP and so most of them were worthless.
For me as seaweed its nearly impossible to get bigger without investing real money in a way that feels more like "pay to win" instead of "create good content, get upvotes and win"...
Thanks again, dude!
Cheers.
Steemit has always been a bit "pay to win", as those who "run the show" is the ones with large accounts. However, back in the days, when I started, you could see tons of heart and compassion. Investors didn't act greedy and selfish. In fact, it was the opposite!
They rewarded good content, no matter if it where a whale, a dolphin, minnow or a seaweed who published the article. They helped newcomers to establish themselves. I was fortunate enough to get a handful of articles well-rewarded when I joined and truth is, that I would probably not have been here today, if I didn't get that much of help and support in the early days. Especially as Steemit always have been promoted like an easy way to earn money...
And truth is, it's not easy at all. It's extremely time consuming and difficult for newcomers... And that's probably why most of them give up too.