It can be confusing on understanding how the steemit reward system works for many of us, so I decided to do a quick summary on how it works.
It's complicated to explain it all in a short summary so check out the link below,
it will explain how the upvote system works in greater detail:
https://steemit.com/tutorial/@ilyastarar/understanding-steemit-know-how-steemit-reward-system-works-and-how-rewards-are-distributed
This other link explains curator rewards. Curator reward earnings are when you upvote other users post.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@calamus056/curation-rewards-explained-in-great-detail
The short summary explanation is if you use the 50/50 choice:
other method is 100% to steem power:
The last method is the least used usually by the witnesses. The rewards go to improve the steemit platform.
The short way to calculate the reward system:
For example if the total amount of sbd in a post is 100 sbd
times 100 by .75 (75%) will get ya 75 sbd (other +/- amount of the 25% is to pay the users that upvote your post ,
called the curators.)
then divide that in half and will get you 37.5 sbd
The 37.5 is the amount you will get in your steem dollar wallet (This amount changes per whatever the current sbd price is worth at payout time that will occur at the end of the 7th day )
the other half of 37.5 is divided by whatever the current price of the steem coin. Example: 37.5 / 4 current steem coin price = 9.375. So 9.375 steem will be going into your steem power.
Upvoting other post can bring good rewards as well. You can also upvote your own comments to compensate for the +/- 25% that is paid to the curators. It kinda evens out at the end if you upvote other posts. This is great because makes you get involve with the steemit community.
The best way to take advantage of upvoting other post are the ones that have a high amount of sbd and the post being less than 30 minutes old...I usually go to the HOT tab where you find the post with most sbd in a short period of time. This way you get higher rewards. You will also find new users to follow and exciting interesting stories to read as well. I usually upvote about 7 post at 100% in the HOT tab section.
If you constantly use your steem power, it will drop significantly but you can always recover after 24 hours.
you can check your steem voting power by going to:
https://steemd.com/@type-your-username-here
Hope this helps ya guys, any thoughts, insights, or any corrections please write a comment, thanks!.