I do have the same dilemma, at the moment. Most of my post doesnt earn pass the 0.010$ , although for several times a whale upvoted me, with his curation trail (@surpassinggoogle) I got a little boost earning 1$ by average.

But you are right in saying that, passion for blogging and writing, sharing ideas will be our core strength to continue posting even with zero payouts (since 0.002$ is kinda deleted upon payout time). I will still write my post.

Investing in SP, delagating sp to bots and selling upvotes can be automated to earn few cents without making any post.

Every steemit users should be clear in mind their target, it would be better that they aim for the long term.