Where's my money? I've joined!
Where's my Like? I liked yours! Looking at you Floodbook.
Taking rewards as granted. Just because one person deserve a reward doesn't mean that you deserve it too. 
I'm heading to work and don't have the time to get in more detail but as a final thought I want to be optimistic and think that all those who complain will want to learn how to use the platform for their success. Just some will need to learn what a community is first.
Thanks for this post @yabapmatt . Catch you in your next post

<p>This wonderful post has received a bellyrub 2.78 % upvote from @bellyrub thanks to this cool cat: @yabapmatt.
My pops @zeartul is one of your top steemit witness, if you like my bellyrubs please go vote for him, if you love what he is doing vote for this comment as well.</p>

<p>This post has received a 2.55 % upvote from @buildawhale thanks to: @yabapmatt.
Send at least 0.50 SBD to @buildawhale with a post link in the memo field for a portion of the next vote.</p>

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You are right, steemits potentials and the visibility for bloggers are quite good compared to other sites. But I think it is the setup that can create the feeling of unfairness. Everyone sees how much the others earn and some pump out 2 page long articles that needed a lot of research, for which they get 2$ and others take a snapshot of the rising sun on their way to work in the morning, call it a "photochallenge" and rake in 20$ - or so it seems. Usually the latter spend a lot of money promoting the post which others usually don't see or look up. It's a bit of a wrong feeling of entitlement that some have, I guess.

A second problem is a bit more real and that is the self upvoting by whales. I think this gets criticized by many more and I also think it has its legitimacy to a certain degree. When you are a whale once (in the top ~100), you never drop out and your articles will always trend no matter the content, because your upvote is worth some 30-100$. That is clearly tilted and it is even more visible to everyone.

I have written an article with [Steemits Gini coefficient](https://steemit.com/steemit/@doodlebear/steemit-has-a-gini-coefficient-worse-than-africa), which shows a serious imbalance that favors the biggest whales. This situation is improving, but the process where fish start catching up is very, very slowly.

My bottom line: Most of the criticism is not justified. The imbalance will fade away over time and after all this is just the *beta* version of steemit. I guess, users who are complaining should be made aware of the fact that this isn't a finished product.

Steem/Steemit is a complex environment, people should really read the FAQ to learn all the details about it. And with some practice, it's not too bad. But most of the newbies barge into the platform expecting things to be easy, that's because they come from an 'easy' platform like Assbook.

Great post.
If I can attempt a response....
- the entry requirements here are more difficult learning wise than say FB.
- the (incorrect) expectation to just 'post" & earn is fairly big

In my view (early days for me yet) I'm looking at Steem as a "stage" upon which I do my "song & dance" act, viewers will pay or not.

I'm not seeing it as a place where I post my "autobiography" (which may be on FB anyhow) and expect strangers to want to pay to read it

In addition even if I was a great "author", writing a "best seller" by an unknown name is virtually unheard of in the "real world"
$0.02

Totally agree - it’s not easy, but equally doesn’t seem all that hard to have at least some success - maybe not lots but at least some 

I think it comes down to society today -namely that we have one that expects instant gratification and promotes the idea that everyone can do anything and can have everything they want. 
The problem is that 
1) not everyone can do anything - in any group, some will be above average and some will be below
2) not everyone can have everything they want. Many people will never achieve their dreams

Jeez, I sound really old and grumpy now

Anyway, nice post!

I think its about greed of the amount shown I think people should look at it more like Facebook and not Like Instagram its not about how much likes you get or in this case upvotes its about the interaction and information sharing the networking and building of a platform.

I just ignore those people. If you can't understand the basic rule "There's no free money" you've got some learning to do. If you want to make more than a couple of cents you have to invest in your account. And just throwing some money at it won't be enough. You have to have a basic understanding of the platform and how you can make profit from your investment.

I tend to look at it differently. I came with no expectations. I was looking for a new blogging platform and this looked like an interesting opportunity. I didn't come for the money but I've earned a bit, more than I did elsewhere. I didn't invest a penny in it but a lot of time writing some decent articles. The appreciation of manual curation means a lot to me. The votes from @curie I received mean that I'm writing valuable articles. To me that means as much as the money. That will make me stick around. 

The thing I miss though is to appreciate other people more. Some post I would like to upvote a thousand times because my miserable cent doesn't mean a lot. But that will come as time passes.

The complainers come and go. Let's focus on the good stuff.

!tip

Steven Pressfield gave it a name in his book, "The War of Art". He called it resistance. It's that force within us all that tries to find a way to convince us to abandon any worthwhile endeavor. One  tactic of resistance is to convince us that a task should be easy and that either we are being conspired against or that we don't have the required skill for the task.

Hi @yabapmatt, you make such a great point about how easy it is to make money on Steemit compared with other platforms. 

I've worked hard on YouTube and my progress has been really slow. Requires over 10000 channel views before any ad money can be earned. Videos need to go viral before any real cash be earned. Videos get buried almost instantly. Can't get people from Facebook to subscribe to the channel etc.

With Steemit, with the help of the whales on a few of my early post I was getting over $100. The number of followers climb 20 times faster than YouTube. The bots are great as well. They help me get on the hot and sometimes trending pages. Steemit is a great place to get out great content and earn some good money. It still requires some patience to consistently earn the money but far less patience than relying on YouTube. No complaints from me.

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@sneaky-ninja is scamming their users and not delivering the votes.

I just wish that steemit will stay longer and won`t shut down like other blogging platforms.