I really enjoyed this post. I've been on Steemit now for a couple of weeks and I've wondered the same things that you write about in this post. It doesn't surprise me that there are some tricks going on behind the scenes to keep the people with the most steem earning the biggest share of the upvotes. I'm going to follow you and I will look forward to some more of your research. I think one way that we can all start earning more money is for new people like us to follow each other and help each other out as much as possible. We also need to stay persistent and keep posting, because although some have made big amounts in their first posts, I think it will take longer for most to build a following and start seeing some numbers. Stay Cool...