Well, there are a lot of manual curation works in Steemit - with the likes of @curie and @bayanihan, even @steemph does curation but the rewards are less. Curation technically means good content and both those curation accounts I mentioned focuses on quality and if posts are getting subpar on that then they can't vote on it. It's super hard being a minnow (by definition I'm a minnow but I'm earning good - because I worked for it so hard). I've tried so many ways to get upvotes but I figured it was true that rewards will just come to you: 1) You post real good. 2) You engage in the community. 3) You find ways to get rewards (like curie curators). Constructive criticism is so much different that manipulating people.