Welcome to the 21st weekly installment of my series on Steemit income and growth!
Income on Steemit is generated by "investment" (the more Steem you have, the more you earn) and by "work" (earning Steem by contributing content that adds value). Already having invested my savings in Steem, I'm now "working" by uploading unique valuable content to the blockchain. My goal is to increase my average weekly income to 15 Steem.
Calculating weekly income
Considering income from accounts that I own, and that my wife owns, and accounts started as group projects with my funds (currently 
Week 01 - 0840 (+ ? ) Steem (+?%)
Week 02 - 0848 (+ 8 ) Steem (+0.95%)
Week 03 - 0862 (+14) Steem (+1.65%)
Week 04 - 0868 (+ 6 ) Steem (+0.70%)
Week 05 - 0876 (+ 8 ) Steem (+0.92%)
Week 06 - 0888 (+12) Steem (+1.37%)
Week 07 - 0914 (+26) Steem (+2.93%)
Week 08 - 0929 (+15) Steem (+1.64%)
Week 09 - 0936 (+ 7 ) Steem (+0.75%)
Week 10 - 0953 (+17) Steem (+1.82%)
Week 11 - 0960 (+ 7 ) Steem (+0.73%)
Week 12 - 0966 (+ 6 ) Steem (+0.63%)
Week 13 - 0973 (+ 7 ) Steem (+0.72%)
Week 14 - 0980 (+ 7 ) Steem (+0.72%)
Week 15 - 0986 (+ 6 ) Steem (+0.61%)
Week 16 - 0991 (+ 5 ) Steem (+0.51%)
Week 17 - 0996 (+ 5 ) Steem (+0.50%)
Week 18 - 1032 (+36) Steem (+3.61%)
Week 19 - 1040 (+ 8 ) Steem (+0.78%)
Week 20 - 1045 (+ 5 ) Steem (+0.48%)
Week 21 - 1051 (+ 6 ) Steem (+0.57%)
Average weekly income (last 10 weeks): +9.1 Steem (+0.91%)
After the worst 2 weeks in recorded history, the average weekly growth has dropped to its lowers level yet, below 1%. Looking ahead, even working and uploading full-time, we aren't going to be able to keep that average up. There's a real lack of upvotes to go around lately. Our activists and models are busy creating high-quality original content, but for some reason it's no longer being seen. Or, it's being seen, but nobody is upvoting it.
We notice that a large number of people have sold some or all of their upvotes into Steemit investment schemes, generally called "bots" and "trails". Perhaps that's why there are less organic upvotes to go around?
Steemit will die if it stops finding high-quality original content (and rewarding it). Content-creators will sometimes work for free, but if they want to do that, they can go back to mainstream media platforms which have massively larger audiences and opportunities.
Steemit's slant is that it has a unique crypto reward system that finds the best content, encourages innovation, empowers artists, and rewards quality. If it ever really did that, it certainly isn't today.
Many other creators of quality content are disappearing in search of a site that will actually find their content, and actually reward them. If Steemit can't do that, it won't recruit or keep content-creators, and it will be a site about itself. It's almost that, already. The "top" lists are flooded with nothing but spam about how to get rich on Steemit, and lists of the top upvote bots. PUKE.
I've been here a full year now. When I got here, I was hearing promises of a major update that would solve many glitches and speed up the signup process. It was coming "any day". It never came! A year is a very long time in cyber-land. They've stopped promising it's coming... and the users have stopped asking. The site is dying.
Our goal of a mere 15 Steem per week is unattainable unless something changes. Our team is giving it their all. We're at peak performance and pumping out articles, videos, photo albums, public appearances, speeches, research, memes, gardening tips, crypto chart analysis, cannamodeling, etc etc. We're unable to generate 15 Steem worth of upvotes per week! We're only trying to make $14 USD per week (two dollars a day) and we can't even do that. More than half of our upvote income comes from each other, so actually we're making under a dollar per day.
We're wearing out our equipment. Our savings were invested into Steem at the start of the year.... which are down over 90%. Should have just stashed fiat dollars under the mattress.
My team and I are the kind of content-creators this site claims it's looking for. Something's wrong!
"Steemit has redefined social media by building a living, breathing, and growing social economy - a community where users are rewarded for sharing their voice."
My calculations show that to be false, at this time. I hope it changes soon and I believe that's possible.
DRutter