Being quite new here, I noticed when I joined I was gifted with 0.500 STEEM. All my wallet balances are at Zero apart from my Steem Power which was 0.500 STEEM (+28.000 STEEM). I made a few posts and upvoted some I thought had value and resteemed a couple of posts and even upvoted a few of my own posts and comments and now my Steem Power Balance is 0.500 STEEM (+14.503 STEEM) !
So instead of earning Steem Value or Steem Power the only thing that changed was my Steem Power balance has gone down... Does anyone know why this is? I was under the impression from other people's posts that upvoting cost you nothing but added to your Steem Balance/Power?
And also when it says 0.500 STEEM (+28.000 STEEM) in my Steem power wallet, what is the difference between 0.5 STEEM and 28.000 STEEM? I still find this site very confusing. My first five posts got next to zero views (apart from my own page refreshes) so how does one actually make money here apart from buying STEEM Tokens and the value of those Tokens appreciating like any other alt coin?
Thank you for your support.
Matt