one thing i can say for steem schools is that they try to teach people how to write good comments. now if you learn how to write a good comment but you do it professionally it could be one type of spam, quality spam :) but on the other hand if you learn to make quality comments and you do that for posts that you are in to then that is ok.
i joined steem schools discord group a week ago, listened to some live classes, followed some work, i am not active, some things that they do i support, some are not my cup of tea, and that is normal. i still don't want to look on steemit as a business, because i have my "regular work" and this is fun for me, but then i have to lover my expectations.
The money problem is in one part because everyone is promoting steemit as a platform on which (i always miss spell this as witch :) ) you can earn money, and most of the people go to steemit with that idea in their heads. i am not sure who said this to me but "you must look on whales like on the children of the rich parents, they will always have money with little effort :), so you must not let that frustrate you.