Becoming more incredulous about the Steemit platform

Joining Steemit last month, I was excited to have an outlet for my writing and art that I could believe in because of its philosophy of decentralization while using the blockchain. I'm feeling this core concept is actually superficial the more I research the platform. This is more due to a lack of understanding the platform more than anything. It doesn't make sense to me to invest efforts into a project that I barely understand, even after endless hours of research.

Maybe the community can help me understand where the money comes from, how it is decentralized when the owners have majority control in a flood of scam based platforms in this "decentralized" realm, and finally get a straight forward answer on how this system truly works. My gut instinct isn't always right (I learned this fact in the dating scene) although "trustless" feels like it's for people who cannot be trusted. It seems too early for me to become "all-in" in something I barely understand. Is this complexity here to purposefully convolute and cover a malevolent agenda? Maybe these are just the growing pains of being an early adapter.

Until I figure this out, I'm treating this like the sound advice I got about bitcoin a while ago, "only invest what you are willing to lose" and spend more time on my own wordpress based site. I love the philosophy at its surface and will continue to use it although post less until I can explain how it even works to someone else. Their is a wealth of resources (I will continue my research on steemit using these resources) and a rich community here that has been great, even with UI limitations, high population of bots, contrived upvotes and followers; which is to be expected on pretty much any social media platform. In the meantime, I remain a doubtful Thomas.