How exactly is payout distributed over the range of posts? To find out, I've created a simple script that takes data out of Steem blockchain.
After many hours of work, this is what the script has produced:
By the time of writing this, a total of about 200k posts were created. As you might have expected, more than half of them earned nothing. About one in six posts earns $1 or more, while about one in 120 posts makes more than $1,000.
I'm not sure how encouraging or discouraging this might appear to you. To me, it's encouraging! One in 120 posts making some real money seems a huge number. It probably will decrease over time as more users compete for readers. Also, how many of all Facebook posts make any money through advertising? I don't have numbers, but I believe the ratio is much lower there.
So, what do you think?
I've used python-steem by 
