I might be a little controversial here, if you ask to what length i would go to earn a buck, it's tricky to answer with few lines because it depends.
How do most people breakthrough on steemit?
I was to told when i had just joined steemit that the best way for a newbie to earn a buck is by commenting, so it's interesting how you spend the all day looking for people with posts and chasing for some upvotes. Is that going an extra mile atleast a little extra mile?
Most people here have diginities, Actually big egos and that's why a big percentage of them don't work on shitty jobs.
But what's point?
You can go an extra mile for a while to earn buck, because when you get better after sometime everything is likely to go back to normal.
Steemit is like real life, you can kiss people's ass for a few months and things will get better.
I always remind myself that though i have a big ego, no one is watching me in everything i do.
A years from now i will be a whale, i will look back and laugh at how i used to kiss people's ass for a few good upvotes.

By the way i was about to write a post about the same thing. I will write it anyway. Your title was kind of, so it was hard to relate until i read it.