Indeed. I bust my ass on my posts, and they don't get much visibility at all. And unfortunately, I don't have scores of free time lying around to stay up all day and night crafting posts. And I have never upvoted my own posts. And I see the same thing you see--lazy posts from some "travel blogger" (read: some chick in a bikini showing us the fabulous time she's having vacationing her way through the tropics on her Steemit boob money). It's sickening.
And you are right about there being very very small niches on Steemit...but that's true of just about any social media. And, sadly, the boobs always win.