Aside from the upvote bots, Steemit is essentially a massive popularity contest. The only articles that are organically upvoted with any regularity are by people who have been around for years and networked with high SP accounts.

Not hating on them. I wish I had that. But the point is that short or long form, it doesn't matter because people will upvote each other based on whether or not that person is their friend.

In fact, I think writing long form content actually hurts your chances of getting a powerful upvote. People generally skim articles and race to the bottom so they can leave a comment. Short articles have the chance to be read fully before this happens. Longer articles do not.

I personally like writing longer articles because I see the value of Steemit not in actually getting organic upvotes from people, but from being able to boost my posts to the top of the Trending page and get guaranteed exposure for what I write. And when I refer people to my page to read my articles who aren't motivated to skim posts and leave worthless comments, they see that I have dozens of long, unique, interesting articles full of original and intelligent thoughts.

But I realize most people aren't motivated by that. They want their $0.10 upvote and don't think of anything beyond the immediate future. That's how most people in the world are though, not just the ones who use this website.