Excellent post! I 100% agree and understand your perspective. We put in a few hundred dollars into Steem Power to have some voting power and whatnot and it hasn't really done anything. I mean, we've gone from making 1 or 2 cents a post or comment to like 8 cents, 18 cents, with one post making $1.50. It doesn't seem like much when you consider we've 'invested' a few hundred into the platform and every one of our posts are still getting buried the second they are posted because of the big players. Jerry makes a post, upvotes it to like $25-40 and it rises to the top instantly, then after 10 minutes of receiving lots of other upvotes (Because the content is ALSO good), he stays at the top and rides the wave. The new accounts will never get to that stage unless they invest heavily and bring a following.

I really like the idea of steemit and what it represents, but it is increasingly becoming a platform very similar to other social media platforms where the people with the most followers, or the most money go to the top very fast and the vast majority of the readers/users are left at the bottom even though they account for the majority of time spent. From my understanding, the idea of Steemit was to reward the users who contribute and spend time on the platform. Don't get me wrong, I've made more than I've ever made using Facebook ($0) so I am being rewarded (5cents here, 10 cents here), but overall it's not much considering I'm still down hundreds of dollars in a sense to earn a few bucks in total in rewards.

Jerry has made thousands in his first few weeks and I'm very happy for him, he's a great marketer and he's leveraging a platform that's working well for him. On the other side, I've made less than $3 on steemit since I've joined and it seems to be dropping over time and that's with 140 posts that we've made and by contributing around $250 - 300 to the platform in Steem Power. (Yes, content matters, Jerry posts high quality content and that definitely counts, but my point is it's more about being seen. Our posts within 30 seconds become buried just like the vast majority other people's posts. Jerry could make a terrible post, upvote himself and still have it stay near the top because his vote alone will surpass 95% of others)

I think for the success of Steemit, this is a very important topic because I've seen a lot of people on Youtube who have already forgotten about steemit. I don't know what the solution is. There will always be the big players and the small players in anything humans do, but it's interesting to analyze/understand what's happening and the reasons Jerry is able to move up so quickly!

We will continue to chug along on Steemit, since we do believe in it, but it's important to understand people earn a ton of money because they have a ton of money invested in their account. Money makes money. The rich get richer! That's all it is.

Will