I think you nailed it @lorilikes... minnow newcomers see total garbage posts reaping huge rewards, they deplete their Steem power with just trying to vote on even a relatively few items per day, they come after seeing videos over on YouTube saying “come to Steemit and you can vote yourself money” which after they do so, it doesn’t take long to run into the current of some earlier adopters who discuss how they are resentful of people who comment without an upvote and consider it “spamming for upvotes” which leaves a minnow type wondering if they have any proper access to the conversation without running their Steem power out to nothing very quickly just so they can attempt to engage... its comes across as a lot of mixed messages sometimes. Are you supposed to participate or not... what’s the “right way” to do so... it can be difficult to know what your “value” is in these mixed messages.