The way I see it, the money situation is two-fold. I only just had my four month anniversary here on Steemit and there are some fundamental issues that money further excarbates. There is nothing wrong with making money, but this platform will only survive if people give back as much as they're taking.

You're right, comments are a great way for Minnows and Planktons to make money. And sadly, they are the only way you can really make money in your early days on the Steemit platform. But there is a flaw in this approach, because it's not that easy.

In my experience, there are a tonne of greedy people on this platform thinking for themselves and their wallets, nothing much more. I see users with high amounts of Steem Power with $10+ 100% upvotes being cheapos with their voting power, I regularly see power users doling out 1% upvotes which equate to almost nothing, or in some cases, just not upvoting comments at all.

My most profitable comment only happened recently and it was on a @berniesanders post I put a lot of effort into my comment and ended up earning 5.662 SBD and 1.436 Steem Power. But every comment I write I put effort into and this was the first time someone with high voting power had actually decided to vote with more than a 1% upvote, I was extremely grateful and happy about that.

If we truly want to help newbies to Steemit, we need to stop being cheapskates with SP. If your vote at 100% is worth $20, that means at 25% your vote is worth $5. If someone takes the time to leave a comment that they put a tonne of time and effort into writing, reward them with at least a minimum of a 12.5% upvote which is worth $2. Or if you really want to help, a 15-20%+ upvote is even better.

Content should drive new users to the platform

Sadly, this couldn't be any further from the truth at the moment. Content isn't driving anything, it's a bunch of circle-jerking and voting bots. Looking at the trending page, many of the posts that are there admittedly wouldn't be there if there was an organic trending section because they're trash.

New users come to Steemit in hopes of making money, but the reality is unless you have money to invest into bots, you're most likely going to make nothing.

Existing users must be engaged and entertained

You can go look at the comments that high Steem Power/reputation users leave and their voting records, most power users are above the 80% self-vote figure. The problem is there is no incentive for power users to give back, so they just keep upvoting their own comments and posts and rarely anything by anyone else.

Not only that, but there is a handful of power users flagging without cause and raping the reward pool. I've been on the receiving end of power user flags before (just a couple) not for spamming or low quality content, but for disagreeing.

The sad reality of this site is a large percentage of people who join will quit within the first month. This platform is like climbing a high mountain with weights on your back and no oxygen tank.