I agree with you. It isn't about the money for me either. I kind of feel like that part is more of a game because of the seemingly randomness of that part of it.
I like sharing valuable information with forward thinking individuals and I know that there is all kinds of synchronicities between people being shared.
You and I are a good "case study" of this. You now reside in China and I now live less than a block from where you lived as a child, in Canada and I have a feeling that this is just the tip of the ice-berg so to speak.
I've went on steem chat once, but only spent about 2 minutes on the channel, a little confused about how to connect with people and communicate when you never know when people will be "on" it. I will spend some time today, figuring out how it works, in case I am missing some critical step, which I suspect I am. :)