I've read quite a few posts recently discussing the rise of the upvoting bot and reward pool rape and it concerns me too. I've stopped using them but as a result, most of my blog posts unless upvoted by the same individual earn me little to nothing and that's after 18+ months on the site. To be fair, I don't post often enough or of a particularly high quality to deserve higher rewards but there are many that do and they are discouraged by what we are seeing. It certainly seemed to be better here when I first joined.

It seems that Steemit is like life in so far as if you have money (SP) or influential friends you will do well but if not you probably won't. Like you say, the only hope for some is to receive a delegation and there are a lot of people who spend a lot of time curating who do get delegations but for others who are already dolphins or whales it is easier to just sell votes or start a vote bot, sit back and watch the money roll in.

Who knows what the future holds for Steemit. I'm torn between powering down and holding in there to see if things improve.