Oh I totally get it, and don't even disagree with you. I like it here and want it to succeed, too. It's just that our tiny (your larger but still small) investments ultimately aren't what will make or break this place. If we had tens of millions, we could single-handedly swing things around here! But our inputs can be (and in my case have been) reduced essentially to nothing. Other people are pulling funds out of Steem, we're putting funds (and years) in. We really have to hope that we aren't suckers. I've been made a sucker a lot of times, and my tolerance for it is pretty low at this point. As the price falls and falls, it becomes apparent that either we're brilliant and soon to be rich, or suckers that just lost everything. It's going to be one or the other.
That's cool about theycallmedan. I don't know him from YT, but every time I see him here on Steem he's doing good things, starting good projects, curating good posts. And yeah I wasn't active right away either, by Christmas 2017 I was though, and have posted/commented/curated every day since.
20 months full time effort, for 2 people and some help from a few friends, and we are down $4500. I'm not sure what 20 months work for 2 people normally goes for, but I bet it's more than -4500 USD!
All that can be fixed if there's a massive jump in the price. All we're asking for is a miracle, heh heh. Steem on.