Thanks for your feedback. Something I mentioned above that I don't think many people analyze is that many of those $500 posts are self-upvoted using bots to the tune of $450. Many aren't even profitable. I went on a hunt to discover why some authors jumped from making $10 per post to $400+. I took a sample of 50 first go around that included persons you'd define in category 1 that clear upwards of $50 per post.

For the most part, this is the most misleading category (1.) These are squarely split between those who have a big investment so have a lot of loyal fans trying to 'catch-a-whale' (witnesses, celebrities, Dolphins, Orcas), those who believe their content is impressive (and usually is) so they bot each post into the hundreds sometimes at a loss, and those who have a whale upvoting them consistently.

I even suspect some smaller higher paid accounts ARE whales using a second account to spread their wealth around and participate in a way they cannot from their whale account. If you look through the wallets of those who have six figures+ on the platform, you start to see some very interesting transactions.

So, category 1, while including some genuinely great contributors that are earning based on talent; most is a lot of false advertising. To someone visiting the first time, the front page looks like hope. Then you get under the hood and realize that these invested in each post to the tune of the payout itself just to look successful.

How many are not self-upvoting, relying on bots and circle-voting, etc? Well, despairingly few. I found 2 out of 50. Granted my research could be wider and I'll continue to sample, but so far it's very misleading. The top players here are the top ones holding, not the top ones earning.

So what I'm saying is, your financial success here has very little to do with content quality, formatting, or even your personality- in reality. In reality, you already have the money or you are pretending you have the money with your own money. You didn't earn that money here.

I agree on your definition of category 4. These will come and will go. In a way they're not a big concern. In a strange way, it could be healthy if more of them came and went. For each user, there is some distribution of coin. Many that don't make anything significant will just abandon ship, leaving their little bits of coin vested indefinitely.

There is a category 3.5 and that is those who are fine making 10 cents per post and just do that all day to the tune of 50 posts per day using apps like steepshot or dmania. They use the platform like Facebook, and they don't make original content. They make their $5 passively and cash out a lot more frequently than others. But they stay, and every time they cash out, their coin returns to the ecosystem. When a whale powers down, the price of Steem can go down. What's the difference between 1 whale and 1000x 1/1000th of a whale, nothing. That means roller coaster prices. The only difference here is signups help bring up the price of steem. But the quality of those signups sort of matter in the long run.

I feel like I'm in category 3. I don't write well. To think I made it through college this horrible at writing. It's in part due to a spectrum condition, in part due to being a sleepy single parent, and in part to not really knowing what to write about yet. I write conversationally. I'm decent at formatting posts as far as markup, but not grammatically. I can see myself becoming a slightly better writer (a goal), but not by much. It's simply not a priority for me to rise to the top of great contributors that pay to play. I've seen many incredible writers with followings still make nothing, because they're not using bots.

Bots are healthy for the economy as well. Using them is good. However, there's something to say for an economy that relies on subsidized investments. Why can't I just make $1 per post just for posting, instead of making half, and then spending half to get a double resulting in $1 anyway- which I have to do every time.

Sneakily, it causes me to invest in the system because I'm paid in part with Steem Power. It's all worth the same, but I can't touch what I've earned unless I power down. And when I do that, I'm less powerful overall.

Lastly, and back to the point, my friends in Thailand posting their naturally occurring paradise pictures are living on $5USD today, and it's cost me $5USD in my time to make this comment- simply because of the difference in living. Essentially, they've received so much more value and I've lost so much- everyone without even realizing it. That's fine with me, but I'm just wondering if anyone else has contemplated this.

Maybe I'm missing something?