Why nobody valued what I thought was an incredible contribution to the platform?
Mostly because we didn't see it. If you want to earn on this platform and you aren't a celebrity with a following, you need to get out there and tell people about yourself. Get on steemit.chat and network. Reach out to the more successful bloggers and see if you can get them to mention you. Get your existing network to join and vote up your stuff. There are some people doing daily "Best of Steemit" posts which feature new personalities and content; try to get listed in one or more of those.
Getting out and doing promotional work is great, and writing good quality posts is great too. But neither of those will get you rewards if no one knows about it. TDV is great at self-promotion, and while self-promotion can become annoying and turn people off if it is excessive and if there isn't substance behind it, in the right quantity it is an essential part of being successful at almost anything.
EDIT: and positivity as other stated. Can't emphasize that enough.
I appreciate this message, @smooth.
I'm the "20 questions" interview guy (my blog); you've up-voted a few of my past interviews.
Last week, I sent you a message, letting you know I had released a new interview. After sending it, I sat and thought about it, and five minutes later I deleted that message to you. My thought was: I don't want to be that individual who begs for up-votes from high-earners. On the other side of the coin, the real reason I was sending you the message is because I genuinely thought you might want to know that this article was posted, as you seemed to have enjoyed a couple of them in the past. The other benefit of your up-votes is that more people tend to see my content... which, to be honest, is also incredibly rewarding.
It's nice to see your advice is to self-promote without being annoying.
Edit: By the way... I've got an exciting 20 questions coming out tomorrow morning. Just sayin...
Thanks a lot for all this recommendations @smooth, I really really appreciate it, and I hope I can get people to know about myself. Again thanks a lot for this tips and for your upvote!