Growing from scratch to something meaningful on this platform is nothing but a miracle. It's very difficult for you to grow to without investing (buying Steem or steem power). The whales are busy swimming and fighting for who is greater. Only a few are concerned about the smaller fishes in the ocean. But you should know that this is a replica of the happenings in our society today. The poor having a deep hatred for the rich but help in getting them richer. Upvoting a newbie is a waste of voting power because everyone wants to get curation rewards. The newbies putting all their best to catch the attention of the whales by upvoting and resteeming their posts without getting back anything. At the end they give up and quit the platform. Yes it is not easy even if you have my kind of vision of seeing this platform as an avenue to express yourself. When you look the incomes generated by this big guys whose posts may not be near yours in quality, you will be tempted to quit too. But you know of the saying that when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Don't give up yet. The whales don't know the implications of what they're doing. The more this system operates like this is the more the whales will swallow the smaller fishes.
I put it as a challenge to all whales to emulate the style of 
