Happens wherever there is too much competition, and the attraction of money.

It also doesn't help that if one is new on steemit with a rep point of 25 and below, there's probably little attention to his or her post.

I grew my rep in a month to 48 by making thoughtful, useful comments and some good posts that provide good information. I think it does work that way, although it can be too tough for most minnows, especially those who have maybe just an hour for Steemit a day.

So someone new here unless being very determined and somewhat stubborn will likely give up very fast when results are less than encouraging.

It's similar to very tough training in real life like say the Navy Seals. Giving up is much, much easier than continuing with it - it gets tougher with each level upto probably the mid-60s in rep.

There are some major problems like spam and plagiarism that could invite the wrath of the giants on the internet(like Google) which can have a long-term effect on Steemit. But, at the same time there are an increasing number of efforts to make things better on Steemit.