Great to meet you! I love pizza too :)
Welcome to steem! I have only been here for 27 days.
You may sometimes find that there are posts that have been poorly written and they seem to be making a lot of money. However, these are the accounts that don't want to try to create good quality content and pay for bots who then send a load of upvotes to them.
But, you can still do well being genuine and using the platform how it is supposed to be used! I.e. posting good quality content consistently, finding accounts you like and interacting with them, and building a nice community of likeminded people.
I joined 27 days ago and have been consistently posting high quality content and slowly but surely I have built by rep from 25 to 47.
So I am proof that if you just stay genuine and use this platform how it is supposed to be used (find accounts that interest you, interact, share greatly written and formatted posts) then you don't need to pay for bots.
Just thought I would give you the heads-up and some encouragement, because this is what I have learned so far on my short but good journey and I don't want you to feel disheartened if you see posts getting loads of 'money' and 'upvotes' which are fake, because genuine always wins in the end :)
p.s. I haven't investigated the discord channel yet. It seems like it could be legit, but I do see these comments on literally all the newbies posts! I think by the looks of their links, they must get a commission if you click through their link or something! haha. I haven't heard any feedback from the school and I haven't really understood yet how it helps -but I am still really only a newbie too! :)