Very good points - up until now I didn't give this stuff too much thought, but lately it's been really obvious that factors other than content quality are determining most of the cash flow.

https://steemit.com/steemit/@sift666/have-the-payouts-on-steemit-turned-into-a-mass-circle-jerk

I'm a big fan of Steemit, and will ride it out, but I can see a lot of people will get discouraged.

For me the other big factor has been that what I've learned here about cryptocurrencies has been far more profitable than the payouts!

http://www.frot.co.nz/design/computing/cryptocurrency-101/