Thinking that posting on Steemit means your content will be read is about as silly as posting on Twitter with no followers and thinking those will be ready too. It's about reputation and relationships. Rewards come later.
I think expectations are out of whack because some people are comparing their start in social media/blogging with others who have been doing it for over a decade. It's just not a rational comparison.
I completely agree. On the other side, I am curious how much monetary rewards pay into content discovery. Allow me to put things in other perspective:
What if paying people to produce content is the root of all the bad things related to content and interaction on this platform?
For example, there are a lot of platforms on which nobody gets payed. On these platforms, like stackoverflow or even medium or redit, people are not payed to produce and discover good content, but they still do. Here on the other side, a lot of people are more interested into self rewarding rather than finding the best piece of content and bringing it to the trending page.
I am curious whether or not paying people to produce content encourages manifestations of greed rather than altruism. I am not saying that this is a problem of how the blockchain is designed, but more of a social values.
The whole system is made to induce the feeling of scarcity. It appeals to the wrong part of the brain :). Is not about paying people, but having a limited time to do so. The content is also made to squize immediate reward, because that's how it works. Who on Earth comes on Steemit from any search engine?
Is all broken man :)))!
The answer for your article was given by @spbeckmam already.