I’m not a fan of just pictures either, and I think it just goes to the “low effort” type of post. Ya sex sells, beautiful women get attention but I wouldn’t base too much faith on those “followers” on IG. 75% of them or more are bot accounts. There also isn’t a financial element to IG so it’s a different playing field.
I do get your frustration with the down votes and I agree in some of the instances. I don’t disagree in others though, and for me just posting a picture with no text, no words of what you’re doing, where you are or anything else is really foolish in my opinion and I may down vote it as well. If you put a little more effort into the post, it could go differently! Or if you don’t want to get down votes, you can decline rewards and it would likely go just fine.
RE: The gatekeeping in Ecency