@danicaswanson
Thanks for all that! If you're right that the key to a sustainable livelihood in the FC ecosystem is to focus on "growing my following" then I'll readily acknowledge that I'm doomed, because I'm terrible at that... lol.
I agree that engagement isn't a sustainable model long term, and that systems and tools that reward quality content over engagement are needed.
I respect the Merkle team greatly, and I'd love to see them reward quality content creation in more ways, but I'm not sure this aspect of the "need more interesting content" problem is a high priority for them. Even if it were, though, I doubt it's an easy problem space to navigate.
In any case, I'm going to keep reading and learning about your work while I think through my next steps. What I've read so far is very much aligned with my own thinking.