First off, thank you, being a newbie, I find it a very useful post.
However, I admit to being confused and I suspect I have not understood something you said. You say we should upvote often, as it costs us nothing, and yet, you also say, if I may quote:
The amount you receive depends on how much you have in your Steemit Wallet. The more you have, the more you give when you vote and therefore, the more you get back when the post is paid-out at the end of seven days.
"...the more you give when you vote"? I have also seen a post where it is explained that as a newbie, if I upvote more than 10 times a day, my drip-drip replenishment cannot catch up and my balance will go down.
Is he right?
I do want to mention that I appreciate that many here want to make money because they need it. So do I, but I quickly realised that at my age it is not a goal I should set for myself. My main concern is that I have been writing for nearly 18 years and though I did, for a short time, have a site where I could publish and had a number of readers, I never was rewarded with comments or (as I asked) critiques, so I stopped posting there.
I also enjoy floating around, often using the name in an interesting or nice comment to open their page and read a post or two. If I chose wisely, then I want to encourage them (especially newbies like me) so I upvote - which explains my first question, as I cannot help if my money runs out.
I look forward to your comment.
Hey @arthur.grafo. Thanks for the comment. I'm pleased you found a use for my post.
The Steem you have in your Steem wallet (SteemPower, SBD and Steem) will not be used for voting. That won't be taken out, but the amount you have 'Powered-up' determines how much you allocate on your vote when you upvote someone's blog or reply.
Take a look at this site by @penguinpablo.
https://www.steemnow.com/
Type your username in there and it shows you the latest votes on your blogs, the curation rewards you've received and the upvotes you've received.
It also shows you what voting power you have and how much your upvote is worth when you click that little circle to say you liked a post.
There's a reward pool and every day, it's refreshed. 75% of the reward pool is allocated to authors and 25% is shared between the curators. When you upvote my post for example, you'd get a proportionate share of 25% of the payout listed.
If a post makes $100,
I'd receive 75% as the author = $75
If there were two upvotes and your upvote gave me $50 of the payout, you'd stand to receive $12.50 (50% of the 25% of the total payout).
It's not as simple as that (when is it ever?) but that's the gist.
You don't pay any of your hard-earned steem out, but you can gain some by curation.