I had the same experience kinda, after a year almost of plugging away on youtube , hadn't made a dime and i've pretty much locked myself in my room for the last year trying to learn new skills like video editing, logos etc.

Then I see people making all this money off of posts and here i couldnt even make a cent. That was until @dimimp gave me $7.50 for a logo i did and that pretty much rejuvenated my desire and made me look into steemit a bit more. Now that I understand how it works I have a little more hope going forwards. Thanks for the advice from one noob to another!