Wanna get rich on YouTube, post a stupid Cat video and get a billion views. I was hoping for something different here.
In my short time, less than a week; I see two things, a mutual admiration society between insiders/whales who reward each other and their designated favorites, by what appears to be automatic BOT voting?
Secondly I notice attempts to garner good press and favoritism by rewarding known content creators/influencers who might migrate or promote Steemit.
I joined because of Jeff Berwick, The Dollar Vigilante reporting he had made $15,000 in his introduction post. Later he posted about this amazing success in another post and received another $9,000+ pay off or pay day.
His total winnings to date appear to be around $35-$40,000 USD not bad. In fairness, Jeff posts a lot and has some great information on YouTube. He also has some rewards that are low, like a $1.25.
Hopefully I'm 100% wrong.
That was a long time ago, the community has been slowly maturing since the time dollarvigilante joined. You're absolutely right that there's collusive voting, but I have some good news for you. With Hardfork 19, the influence of whales will be diminished by an order of magnitude. Currently, it takes 10,000 minnows to equal a whale. After HF19, it'll be just 100 minnows. So insider/whale/collusive voting will no longer be effective.
Of course, now it's up to the minnows and dolphins to curate responsibly - which is why I made this post.
Also, as Steemit grows and matures, all of this will go away.