Steemit is great! It lies on a technology that has never been used before in such a way. No one actually knows how things will work out in the future. It may go to the Moon but it might as well hit rock bottom and be forgotten in two years from now. It's not the first blog platform that pays. It just might be the first one that will not fail.
Sure, Steemit is a great place with a wonderful helping community, but don't expect to succeed if you just try it. You really need to throw yourself out there. Write, read, interact! But that of course, is not enough. Without a strategy you are going to have a tough time earning followers and upvotes.
You can read as many tutorials how to make better posts, when to post, which tags to use etc., unless you know what are you doing it will be for nothing. What applies for some steemians is no guarantee that will work for you. You need to build your own strategy, and stop looking at other steemians payouts.
Making it
You can steemit in many ways. It all depends on what kind of person you are. Maybe you're a painter, artist or a designer? Than focus on sharing your work, even if no one knows you, you still leave a mark on the blockchain. It really doesn't matter who you are, as long you write with passion, regardless if no one is upvoting you right now. Yesterday someone commented on a post I did 7 months ago. Find a powerful steemian and analyze his or her posts. You will notice that straight from the beginning they try to impress with their blog. Learn from them, but don't copy. There is no point in writing posts just to get more money and followers. Sure we all depend on them, but just posting what is hot or trending will make you faceless in the eyes of other steemians. Choose some topics you are passionate about and try to write your posts in advance. Always have a plan. Take a break from Steemit and start gathering material for your blog. Plan when and what to post, in which categories and think of what people you will intrigue. Just posting random stuff will only leave you discouraged, what's more you will start to think that it's a scheme, and you will never make these huge payout posts.
I've been around since August and I never stopped steeming, even when the price was 0.15$ and we had about 200-300 really active authors. I've seen flag wars, autovoting guilds who game the system, desperate people trying to get attention in anyway you can think of, trolls from every corner of the web and things I prefer not to mention. So when someone says you can make money here on Steemit, this doesn't mean money will come easily. It's up to you do decide if it's worth it. In a sense this will make or break Steemit.