I disagree that $400 is a lot for a movie review. A good movie reviewer in the papers would expect that or more.

But your point still stands. New users face an uphill battle to make anything. I have been on this service about 5 months now. The first 2 or 3 months I made pennies. Now, for the exact same posts type of posts I have done since the beginning, I may make anywhere from 2 to 5 bucks for a post. Still not a lot, but there is improvement there. I've had to network like hell thru comments here and on Discord to get this far.

I actually think this isn't anything new tho. It's always been this way. Steemit is better than the old way, actually.

Look at novels. Stephen King could shit on 1000 pages and publish it and it would instantly sell out and probably make the New York Times best seller list. Why? Is it because he has bought influence in the industry? While I'm sure there are plenty of brownnosers trying to hope he'll notice them, it is more due to him building up a certain reputation over his career. People see his name on the cover and they have some trust they will get a quality book, so they instantly buy without even reading what it's about or flipping thru a few pages. Whereas new authors might work like hell and publish a novel so good that quality-wise it is one of the best novels of the year. Yet no one knows who they are. Risk 5 bucks (or 30 for a hardback) on an unknown? Most people won't risk it. He/she sells nothing.

This is a bit like the high rep Steemit user who almost instantly gets $400 in upvotes to any post he/she makes and the newer steemit user who only makes pennies on a great post.

But Stephen King had to work long and hard to get to the point where he has the rep to instantly sell books.

Steemit is both better and worse. Better because to even get to the point where you can start to gain a reputation, like Stephen King, required a lucky break in the old world. You had to be noticed. You had to be lucky and have that talent scout see you, or have the right editor notice your manuscript when he happened to be in a good mood, and so on. You had to be lucky to get that break, after which you had to work like hell to take advantage of the situation you found yourself in. Steemit gets rid of the luck to some degree. Being noticed, resteemed, and going viral is still a bit of a lucky break, but you can build up without that and many have.

Where Steemit is worse is there are a lot more brownnosers and they have more influence. So some will just look for lists of people with high reps and/or high SP and upvote/comment on everything they do, hoping to suckup enough to gain something.

So better and worse, but I think overall Steemit is working well.

But I agree, it is disheartening to make so little in the beginning. I made it thru those first few months by just posting what I loved and not caring if I got any money at all. As the old saying goes, money comes when you do what you love, but it rarely comes when you chase it. I hope your friend doesn't give up and pushes thru the tough time! It'll be worth it on here.