Steem has become a place where a person needs to organically grow an audience by posting good content and interacting. It definitely takes time. It can be disheartening (especially when you put up what you think is a good quality post just to see it 'earn' 71 cents), but it takes time. I think it's a nice change.
This post was shared on #pypt, which is what brought me to it. Perhaps ironically, this is the type of engagement I refer to; a person needs to actively be engaged and look for what is out there. No one is going to gift anyone with anything just for showing up.