"Here you go! Take my money! Make me famous! Please! I beg of you! I need to be popular! I don't care if I don't make any money! My money is your money!"

=

American record industry (1877-2019)

I work my ass off and take a massive percent loss to get my shit out there, lifetime. Forever. Cost of doing biz, I have been told, again lifetime. I have never made much money and have mostly destroyed my life for this stupid shit. I just presume people surrounding the release of creative content will always act in the least altruistic way possible and I find myself rarely surprised. If I'm gonna put 20-30 hours into something to post only to Steemit, which is already ridiculous, I'm probably gonna spend the money to promote it. It is too demoralizing otherwise.

I will absolutely stop using bots when there is a better way to organically build followers on this platform. I also look forward to my free unicorn.

Also: it is pretty badass how much engagement you get in the comments section. Encouraging even.