A lot of the new folks that join us ask me how to earn money and I always tell them the same thing create good content, engage your readers, leave good comments on pieces that interest you not because someone is a whale and you are hoping that they'll rain upvotes on you because you commented on their post. Comment something generic and repetitive you might just piss them off enough to look at your profile and see the behaviour of your comments and start flagging you down.

When you leave a generally good comment then you might piqued their interest because you left a good comment so what would their posts be like. That's my way of thinking whenever I post something and get good comments from someone because I am intrigued why he responded. I have stumbled on several hidden gems because of this and follow them regularly.

If the poster did not respond or upvoted you don't feel bad because you added something to the conversation. Too many people comment and expecting something in return as if it is owed to them.

From the start I have been trying to produce quality content and at the start was just earning cents but it never deterred me. I have gotten some followers now and even get curated a couple of times which I am happy.

I was looking at my stats and 63 % of my earnings come from posts. I post an average 1 post a day. So I do try to make it count haha. I comment about an average of 11 times a day.

That's says a lot in terms of the quality of engagement I do.

I don't judge those that post 5-6 times doing those color challenges and photo contests or even submit multiple memes if that is what they want to do. I do roll my eyes when some compare themselves to me and complaint that it is unfair that they get cents with their multiple posts and I get a dollar for my 1 post.

I like your advice that we should upvote and reward those that are enriching steem and not diluting it with shit posts.

It pains my heart though that a lot of shit posts get a lot of money because they are mere placeholder posts for upvote bid bots and they raping the rewards. I am glad that @upme has started to impose bans on these behaviours.

Good day to you.