I understand you. Believe it or not, I'm often jealous too. Not when it comes to payout, but when it comes to who exactly supports me/others. So I can somewhat relate.
I was lucky, I was noticed. I screamed into the void and wasted my first 2 steemit months being in the chat almost all my waking hours. I still spend most of my free time there. That helped.
But I know you from the chat, so you're not one of the people who don't try to socialize.
I think your problem is content.
Now, don't get me wrong: I am not saying you're a bad writer. This post here is the first I've (knowingly) read by you (shame on me) and it's well-written and has a good flow. But it's nothing special.
I've scrolled through your posts of the last 16 days, just checking titles. The dead post initiative is cool, I've seen it before. But ofc nobody with high SP cares - their posts are rarely undervalued.
Your other posts look alright too, when just scrolling past - but mostly not "eye-catching". Some crypto things, some help for newbies, some personal thoughts. Might be all useful content, might all be written well.
But it's not what catches eyes.
Finding a niche is hard. And I'm not saying that, just because you found a niche you'd be getting higher payouts. This is steemit, without the right connections you basically get nowhere.
but
A niche might help you.
I hope you don't feel like I'm criticizing you or trying to invalidate your frustration, you're absolutely right to be frustrated. I hope to give you an idea of what might change things.
That's ok. I don't have any problems with anything you said. It's all very realistic advice given the situations of steemit.
"Of course nobody with high SP cares" - This is where my frustration comes from. Everyone talks about quality and "adding value" but I often feel they only want to support those who directly support them. I feel I've missed a lot of chances by helping those who need it more, rather than trying to use my upvote to make nice with some larger accounts. When all is said and done, success at steemit is all about auto-vote, if you get on a few big users auto-vote you are good to go. I spent a lot of time criticizing this and actually missed a lot of chances to get on a lot of people's autovote.
I often feel I'm not capitalistic enough for steemit...
I have a niche but it is one I created with other minnows without the support of any one with substantial power and without much monetary support to offer anyone. I was mistaken in thinking that there would be those with power who would like what we were doing enough to consistently support it. There are some who support it, but usually in passing. I felt I needed to do this because I really didn't feel myself in any of the other niches, I don't really agree with the way a lot of them do things, or in your case, it's just about different interests.
Your success comes from the fact that you contribute quality AND you fit into a niche that already has a substantial amount of power behind it. I totally understand if you don't frequent my blog, we have very different interests. There are powerful users who write about similar topics to me but most of them don't really spend much time looking at smaller users posts, even those who leave great comments, at best they have a few friends whose posts they check out, at worst they just post their own and auto upvote whoever is likely to give them good curation rewards. I could list those people but I won't.
As far as my own articles, I don't take offense because I have lots of good material that you haven't read. It's hard to be consistent though when so much of your high quality material goes unnoticed and you still manage to get a $9 payout on drunk posts about cat pics though.
Your advice is all greatly appreciated. I don't think there is anything I haven't heard before, but at least it's a reminder that my idealism and insistence on doing things my own way may be holding me back....which makes it even more frustrating but might be something I need to hear.
It's really hard to figure out....it really changes every hours... I mean, look, I got a $10 payout on this post. It's not bad, I'm obviously not a total failure at steemit, I just wish I could be as succesful as you guys without changing myself and how I do things.
Thank you so much for reading, even just once, it means something to me.
And so this is it.
I don't have to say much but that sentence is also a reminder for me as well.
It all comes down to steem power, if you are whale then you don't need to care about other voters because you will make money anyway.
You will get some hundred bucks for even a non worthy content, who is there to judge?
My writhing is kinda boring, hope you get the point.
It still needs work and time to get to this point tho. I didn't join as a whale and I never pandered to whales. Or at least I tried not to.
You need to get noticed once, by one person, who then upvotes you frequently. That's often the key to success.
And highly unfair, I say this as one of the lucky ones.
So do you think is better to spend time on the chat or on steemit leaving good comments?
Depends. Chatting is tedious, you'd have to be online almost constantly to make sure people remember you in more ways than just "I have seen this name before".
It's an option, but I think a less time-intensive way would be writing thoughtful comments. But I don't think there's a "one fits all" for this.