@lordnigel great comment .. I am with you this is my experience also.. I listened to @beanz on discord and she said many of the things she wrote here .. so glad she made this post.. she is a great representative for us minnows.. thank you.
Also one BIG shout out to @minnowsupport we love you!

Yes I buy and occasional upvote not to make tons of money ... after curation probably 20 cents on a dollar..

I have put in effort and got noticed a few times by curators... but generally doing this for fun now and really the fail factor is there for most new minnows.

Think of it a Whale A can post something ordinary...Whale B, C, and D have bots that can upvote it with never reading and it trends. How much out of the money pool is that? So I am fine with someone making 20 cents .. Like me.. Lol.. no offense to anyone .. like I say I am here for the fun of it or I would leave due to the imbalance currently being experienced and I am thinking it will al work out eventually even for people like me that are at the bottom and have no techy skills.