First of all, before commenting anything, I wanna make clear you have a valid point and I don't wanna disrespect or disqualify what you said.

Being an entrepreneur for some years now, I have realized, for many years now that life doesn't usually reward talent.

after reading that last sentence you might say "WHAT", "What about soccer players, MLB or even e-gamers" that all earn due to their skills, also chefs, painters, designers what about them?

with that in mind, I bring you math logic into the topic to make this more clear, the type of logic that reads if a equals b, then b equals c, then a equals c.

if my statement wasn't true why are there thousand (if not millions) performers, artist, dancers and in this case writers that earn almost nothing with their careers and passions?

That's because when money enters the subject, all that matters are numbers. Numbers are the name of the game. It's obvious that there is gonna be a huge difference in payments due to the number of viewers that a person has here on Steemit.

To have those numbers other people don't have a clue on what did this person with high rewards to have those eyeballs on their posts.

To make things more clear if a "normal" person with 50 followers on Instagram takes a selfie and then Will Smith takes a selfie, obviously, there is no question who is gonna receive more likes and comments. It doesn't matter at all the quality of the selfies its just numbers. So many people love will smith, know and like him.

This also applies to writing. If I start writing today on Steemit and does Stephen King also start writing his rewards are going the hell up way faster than me even if I do perfect posts (don't know if that's possible)

Life is not fair neither Steemit is, many whales have explained this before, with numbers, with drawings, and with videos.

So what is my advice to your friend or the people with small payments? keep the hell going.

life is not fair, but when discipline, consistency, hard work, unbreakable will, vision, focus and two hundred more qualities come into play, then you have a chance.

Upvoted you post =).