I've worked my ass off to get to level 32. I don't know why I'm not making money. I do know why the level 25's you are seeing are making money. Because when @steemit first started @steemians would get 7 @steem coins FREE for signing up. There is a video out by a popular @steemian and in the video he explains to one of his friends, how you have to have a phone number for your @steem account, he said just to pay $15 for a new sim card, and you can make another @steemit account, and the FREE 7 @steem tokens are worth more then the $15 for a new sim card.

So when starting out, many many many people made several @steemit accounts, and now they only upvote their own posts, and their own accounts, then they will work with other @steemwhales so they can basically run the platform. They have all the power to vote, and they have all the power to make something trending. So if you're not sucking their dicks, they won't do shit for you.

Basically they take the lower accounts and they boost them up so new people will see low accounts making big money, those people think they have to buy @steem token and power up and upvote others posts, so they do that. Really why they are doing is taking their money and giving it to the @whales then the @whales go and use it to scam more people.

The @steemit platform is so flawed. I wouldn't be surprised if the people that launched it are actually the same people with several different accounts that are running the whole show. It's basically a loop for them to steal your money. Like most cryptocurrency projects are now days.