It's not the success stories that keep me here...it's the failure stories.

The Trending list is full of infomercials on how you, too, can make a million flipping Steem posts. Then there are the ones that sound like corporate press releases about adding value and great customer experiences, etc. which in the end tell you that great content is the secret and write what you know. Thanks for that.

Honestly, if I see another infomercial for One Little Trick Steemers Don't Want You To Know, I'll just lose it.

I've been here, um, a week? Yeah. My first experience seems to be the official Steem Newbie Hazing...

1. Join Steemit.

2. See lucrative Introduce Yourself Posts.

3. Post (sure to be lucrative) Introduce Yourself Post.

4. Make $0.

5. Despair.

It was only after seeing enough other people, intelligent, articulate people with lots to say and to offer, who had also failed at first, that I decided to stick around. 

And then I got a $260 comment, pretty much about how hard it is to make any money :)

We hear all day from the winners. But it's the losers who convinced me it's worth staying.