> Or this one, where I spent money building a tool for steem and did not even get enough to cover my hosting fees.. : https://steemit.com/steemit/@worstdevever/if-you-can-t-beat-them-join-them

Have you seriously looked at your post with critical eyes?

Page 1: photo of a whale (there are hundreds of posts showing photos of whales on Steemit, that starts getting boring)
Page 2: the same dashboard you posted many times already that is good but hardly anything new
Page 3: cartoon animated GIF (thousands of them ad nauseam, we are sick of animated GIFs)
Page 4: finally, your tool, but by this point everyone has already given up hope of seeing interesting content, and the picture is easily interpreted as yet another google map snapshot like there are already many around that don't add much value.

Bottom line, the reason that post didn't take off is that you have deliberately diluted the main point of your post with irrelevant and unoriginal distractions that made your post look unstructured and unoriginal. There are thousands of posts per day, nobody has the time to read everything so people skim first and read only what catches their eyes. First impression is supremely important. Depending on their first impression people will decide whether to give more attention to the post or move on to next post.