Oh, didn't know there was a lot of kiwi in the beginning. Yes, the diminution of rewards and the difficulty of being noticed and appreciated will certainly upset people a lot. And I also remember good big payments at the very beginning, now I don't have to dream about them :) Well, then the population of the site was small, which means there was more chances that really interesting posts would be noticed, read and appreciated. Now you need to either not chase the reward, or put much more effort. But not everyone is here for the sake of some kind of global earnings) It's just nice when people appreciate your work somehow.
I read your post — it is really very good. Why not start writing more? :) On TravelFeed with cross-posting on Hive, for example, this is the place for scenic and travel posts.