Wow, thank you so much! This is a very touching article :) I completely agree with the sentiment of your post. When I first joined there were tons of people complaining about how unfair the rewards were, and you only got votes if you were friends with the whales. The top witness positions were supposedly even worse. Everybody made it seem like the whole site was rigged. I didn't know any whales, or anyone in the community for that matter (other than my brother who recruited me) when I first joined. I had very little crypto experience too. (I had used BTC to play an online casino game before, but that was pretty much it.) I spent my first 6 months here posting and getting to know people, all with very little rewards. It even got to the point that most of my friends were making fun of me for spending so much time on 'that website', when I wasn't making any money for it. I knew the value that the platform offered though, and that there was so much potential here if people were willing to put in the effort. Finding ways to add value was really the key. After almost a year of being here now, I am very proud to say that I now receive regular high payouts on my post and I have managed to be voted in as one of the top witnesses. I truly consider it an honor, and will always remember looking back to the time that I joined and it was exciting to get a few upvotes and even a dollar on one of my posts. I hope that my story can be one of inspiration to new people joining the platform, that it really is possible to become successful here if you find your own unique way to add value to the platform, and take the time to build relationships and make the community/platform better.