I think part of the problem with steemit is precisely the steem currency thing, because it leads to people getting greedy. And thus, instead of content creators, we have huge numbers of people whoring around for upvotes and followers, and trying to find ways to game the system to make money.
It's very frustrating; the general quality of the content here is appallingly low, and very few articles are worth even glancing at.
I use this sort of social media primarily to share content, partly just for the fun, and partly to promote myself and my website a bit. I'm not sure whether steemit is really much good for that. As you say, initially one gets no views on anything. If I'm going to spend hours crafting an article, it might be better to just post it on a site like Medium (where quality is much higher).
On the other hand, if I hang in there for a while, and not get too desperately obsessed with the money thing, and follow only people actually worth following, then in the longer run I may find steemit worth some time and effort.
On any social media the goal should really be to build up actual worthwhile, meaningful contacts and relationships, and not just a mad rush to get "followers" (none of whom will actually be genuinely interested in what you have to offer, because they too just want more and followers, as if it is some sort of goal in itself). I suspect that with time and effort one can do that here too.
RE: Steemit review as a content creator