Okay, so first of all, i used to be active on steemit, and just returned there. I saw that it had gone to shit, so now i moved here instead. I am probably one of those people you mention who didn't put in the work, but i would like to add my thoughts.

For me, this is mainly a social website, that has the added benefit of making you a bit of money. So for me, i was simply too busy to spend time on a social media/ blog/ idea site. Now that i am finishing my masters degree however, i hope to have some more time.
But i don't think people should get into the site to "make it big". People should just post about stuff they are passionate about, take part in the community, and be happy with that. If that ends up making them "rich" that is great, but it shouldn't be the goal. That seems to happen way too often with youtubers, and they rarely succeed if they just want to make money.

The people who are successful on youtube are the ones who are passionate, and puts out great content (most often), and i hope it's the same here