With the sudden influx of new users and changes to the upvote power, it's not as easy to find upvotes these days.
Looking back at my first articles posted to steemit, my original Stoned Food Review got a whopping 54 upvotes! Those were the days, man. Does the Steemit platform auto-correct for this imbalance? Theoretically, over time as new users gain SP they will be able to send more upvotes to others, instead of a limited number. With the small amount of upvotes available for new users, it's no surprise they are mostly self-upvotes to try and promote their posts in a sea of new content.
No doubt Steemit has quickly become a hub of activity. I still think it's one of the best cryptocurrencies in existence, with zero fees and blazing transaction speeds. More people need to make a point of sending eachother STEEM and not just the smallest possible amount of 0.001 SBD. Being able to send large quantities of STEEM between users on the platform fast, and for free is a great feature to have. Thus I encourage you to directly tip any article authors that you think deserve it. You've got a great resource at your disposal, use it!
Lastly, with the growth of the userbase comes a growth in spammers and other malicious actors. So the curator should have their time in the sun, because content creators like myself are a dime a dozen, but good curators that upvote quality content and actually read the articles before voting are becoming a rare breed. So those that don't feel like posting and instead spend time lurking and separating the wheat from the chaff, thank you for doing this much needed janitorial work at this time.
Posting good content is the only way forward! Keep up the good work everyone!
Also thanks to everyone following this blog because your comments and feedback are what keep me coming up with new ideas. Cheers and I look forward to upvoting you all.