It is certainly hard to find a groove on Steemit. I blog about a lot of different things and depending on how much time I put into a post it feels like it is worth it or it doesn't. Right now I pretty much know I'm going to get $2 / post but that isn't exactly worth my time in a lot of ways. I was lucky enough to strike a cord with a lot of people on my recent post about Shitconnect that hit the trending page. I feel like I voiced what a lot of other people have been feeling with that as well.
There are just certain topics that I blog about that I feel won't hit the trending page no matter what though. Like if I do a post on fitness I don't feel like it will go anywhere. Same thing with Tinder / dating related stuff. It could be super well written but it is almost too controversial I feel like. I know that sounds funny for a site that is supposed to have no censorship and all that but since everything is transparent then people worry about what other people think possibly.
I know what you mean about YouTube and getting lost in there and you keep finding more content to watch. I can kind of do that with Steemit but even though the Steemit community has grown a lot I feel like there are only a few people have any success talking about certain topics.
Like there are a couple "foodie" bloggers. A few travel bloggers. A few people doing art. Then there are a handful of crypto related people. But it all boils down to the fact that they have to have a lot of power themselves typically and also get on upvote lists.
Obviously it is super hard to grow a YouTube channel but I feel like people have this clearer vision that when they start on YouTube it is going to be tough and they have to keep going and being consistent and then they could become one of these successful YouTuber and be driving supercars and balling out of control.
With Steemit possibly people from the outside can't really see that or feel like someone is "Steemit Made" There are really only a couple examples of pure content creators doing pretty well on here and making over a $100K equivalent and it all had to do with them never selling when the price got super low...etc. Or not being in a situation where they had to live off the earnings. Where they could keep letting it build and they had other income or a spouse or something...etc.
I'm just opening thinking about it as I type. I think that people with power think a lot more about their votes on here and even though this is a tipping platform with the "tipping" not coming directly out of that person's wallet I think that once a person has a lot of power they start consciously or subconsciously being more greedy when it comes down to their votes. Especially when the price drops some for STEEM and a person's vote is worth $4 instead of $8 then they start saying "I'm going to have to upvote myself more to make back my investment"
Where as on YouTube there is not as direct of a tie to the viewers money since it is coming from advertisers. It is an interesting situation for sure.