RE: Gaming, Social Media, Incentivization and Feeling a Sense of Accomplishment
What you described in your gaming experience with that one site, is an apt description of the change around 1980 in American-style capitalism. It went from "building a middle class" to "winner take all" and has not changed since.
Universal basic income seeks to reverse that trend. I believe that in the long run, cryptocurrency will reverse that trend because the power to create money will inevitably be distributed. People will have choices, just like the choice you made to stop using that gaming site once they went, "winner take all".
I have a sincere hope that Steemit will help to reverse that trend, too. I have seen evidence that the developers are working to flatten the distribution curve so that everyone has a chance to earn something from this new form of social media.
As to myself, I love to write anyway, and I'm not planning on stopping anytime soon. As my experience grows and the days go by, I am seeing Steemit as more of a challenge that I want to crack than a long series of defeats with no hope of winning. I'm not even sure it's a question of winning as it is a question of collaboration.
I believe that with persistent effort over time, with engagement, with writing quality content and with networking with people of like mind, I will eventually prosper nicely.
I don't know if there is any other way. I can cite a few examples of people who saw the opportunity when Steem was cheap (<10 cents) and piled up a bunch of Steem along the way. They worked hard to build their audiences and now they're well established here.
For me, I have sufficient determination, but I don't know just how to go about it yet. That is what I will discover with enough time and patience. That's why I'm still here.
That is definitely a fact. The days when someone starting a local hardware store and "doing well" in their community was regarded as "success" has come and gone. The days of the local high school student who was a star golfer becoming the pro at the local golf course and it was regarded as "success" are also gone.
This whole "winner take all" mindset is also psychologically destructive because it also creates a dynamic in which there not only is ONE winner, but everybody else walks away feeling like a LOSER. And that gradually chips away at your psyche, and (I believe) can probably track to the increasing subtext of RAGE we see in society.
UBI may definitely be a solution to counter the situation; the question is where will it come from? The factory owners who replace some Joe Schmoe with a robot isn't about to give up the incremental profit from no longer having to pay Joe to make toasters.
As for Steemit, I believe one of the essential components here is "patience." Whenever someone is whining a lot, it's almost always some "short term issue." And often tied to unrealistic expectations ("I quit my job to blog full time...") that basically supplies evidence of individual poor judgment, not flaws in the system.
I was here and blogging daily through 7-cent Steem when many people either outright STOPPED, or they were singing the doomsday song that it was "the end of Steemit." And yet? Here I am.
I think you have the right approach, from your description... just keep plugging away at it. In the end, consistency will probably win the day.