@mikev, I share your concern except I am just starting out on Steemit. I'm a bit hesitant to spend too much time crafting great articles or putting my best content on Steemit as I am not totally convinced that this is the way forward for me.

I am also trying to build up a few blogs on the side and I feel like my energy and focus is best spent there.

Life is too short and spending hours a day interacting with bots and earning pennies isn't worth it. Having said that though, there are people here making some decent passive income, but I still haven't got my head around what the trick is.

I can see immediately from the way that you write that you aren't one of those spammers who writes just for the sake of it. And glad to read that there are people here that do enjoy writing!

I was thinking about Steemit today and got a "deja vu" moment from when I was 16 years old, desperate to make a quick buck and signed up for loads of online survey websites. I invested hours into it and was earning pennies. :)

I am going to give Steemit a shot until end of this year and then decide whether I'll power down, cash out and then invest my energy on something bigger or whether i can really stick with Steemit and build decent passive income using this platform. The concept is great because I love writing but then having a self-hosted blog or using Medium and taking the time to build up your email list and followers that really read your content and engage with you is far more rewarding.. Not to mention, it could lead to things like online courses, ebooks or training material which you can monetise to make a decent living! I'm torn between two worlds :)

If you have any tips for Steemit or Lessons Learnt that you could share with me, I'd be really happy to hear what you have to say. Cheers!!