I agree and this has been an issue for a long time, it is something we have been working on for sometime.

Our current solution was the whale voting experiment where, whales either didn't vote at all or lowered the percentage of each of their votes - this gave minnows a lot more power in their votes and helped start to stabilize the communities earnings.

Our long term solution comes into effect fairly soon (the next few weeks), there is a new hardfork planned which is going to change the reward curve - this means that people's votes will be worth more than they are now and it's not so reliant on whales.

Steemit is growing and evolving, it has changed so much since I joined 11 months ago and I assume it will in the months to come - we are attempting to fix and improve things as we go.

I was stoked to be getting 12 cents the thing to remember is that, facebook would have paid you nothing so your up - plus this all counts to building things up for yourself in the future.

I always try to remember even on lower earning posts, every cent adds up - I had a coin jar where I threw all my loose change mostly five and ten cent coins, eventually the jar was full I counted it and I had over $170.

Whale votes only make a massive difference when a heap of other people have already voted or a going to, you need to promote to a large audience rather than hope for one good view from a whale.

The whales will find content usually after others start to spread it and vote, you need all levels of support to succeed here - networking and getting resteems makes all the difference.

Anyways good luck with it :)