All points I agree with, perhaps you saw a similar post I made a week ago and I detect a similar tone in your words here. That is you really appreciate the support you get from people like @steemstem but your kind of surprised that some of your posts flop for no apparent reason (to yourself). Don't worry your not alone, and you will move past it (people on here gave me encouragement). I felt the same with my Mars post which kind of flopped - there was a lot of work in that (doing the Mars diagrams to scale and in the correct phase, plus original images of Mars and it's moons).
Keep in mind you likely have a deeper appreciation of the subject than most of your readers, so they may not understand or appreciate how much work or how original your work is. Once you understand that it will make it easier to accept. Keep in mind you would get nothing on another platform (although if you write for magazines you sometimes get money, although whether they pay up is another thing).
Regarding people downvoting you, I am now of the opinion this is a minor risk. I had a Electric Universe guy spam one of my posts and ended up downvoting him which got his post hidden. There is flat earther that spammed one of @fredrikaa 's thread's, luckily fredrikaa had enough SP to downvote him, but one of us might not be so lucky. For this reason I think it is important to keep accumulating SP, which also helps in other ways.
Anyway keep in there, and 2 100% upvotes from me (one on your story and one on a comment)!
I actually did read that post of yours and in a way it did inspire this post. I thought you made some very solid points. Originally I was planning (ahead of time) on simply writing about the fact I reached 100 followers, while also showing appreciation to those who supported me from the beginning. In the end, it evolved into something a bit more extensive. I hope this post didn't come as me being frustrated because the exact opposite is the case.
However, I do find it odd that after having quite a few (the majority) of my in-depth posts being upvoted from curation groups such as steemstem, I would have built some form of rapport. At the very least, I was hoping those upvotes would have translated into follows. For instance, some of my posts have 100 + upvotes, but I'm lucky if I gain substantial number of followers.
I definitely considered the possibility that the material I write about may simply not resonate with others as much as it does with myself. It would be unfortunate if that were the case (it most likely is), but I have a feeling as the platform grows, that may not be an issue. Groups such as Geopolis should help resolve that problem. Also, it's reassuring to know that downvoting may not be that big of a deal. I need to formulate a game plan to build up my SP— I think I'm going to begin dedicating a couple posts a week specifically for that purpose.
At the end of the day, I'm just happy to be getting any sort of attention. With that being said, thanks for the thoughtful reply and words of encouragement. It definitely put some of my worries to rest, while also showing me some of us are in the same boat. Thanks for the support!