How much bitcoin is created each day and how is that price supported? Understand the answer to that question and you'll have a better understanding what Steem is accomplishing. Better yet, how does 10,000 bitcoin to buy one pizza in May 2010 become worth over $24 million just 7 years later? You're about to head down the rabbit hole, my friend. Enjoy the ride. :)

I started my own witness here, and it's been running for about a month: https://steemit.com/@lukestokes.mhth/transfers

As a backup witness, the number of blocks you produce is based on how high up this list you get voted by other Steem Power holders: https://steemd.com/witnesses

You can see my block production here: https://steemdb.com/@lukestokes.mhth/blocks

The top 20 witnesses create most of the blocks, but they get far less per block than a backup witness which gets just shy of 1 Steem per block.

It's not just about running a computer program. You have to be supported and voted in by the community. If you don't provide value as a witness, you can get voted out. Most witnesses do regular reports (you can see some of them here).

Here's my proposal post along with my witness updates 6/6/2017 and june-19th-2017