RE: Are we in an echo chamber?
Personally as an artist I've had same nice responses and communication regardless of the platform, but that might be because artists are not anonymous and we grow our brand.
On the other hand, when I first joined I got the wrong impression of how Steemit works. I guess whales are more generous to the 1st week newcomers. Also I wasn't warned about the 50% drop in payout by the end of the week. Now I'm used to guessing payout but it would help if there was a non official more accurate final payout prediction.
I am still reluctant to recommend Steemit to other artists simply because it's so unpredictable. So I don't want to waste their time unnecessarily. I just wonder how many months it takes to achieve a more stable Steemit account.
One big difference I noticed is: art contests/challenges are run by money. If there is no money incentive- there will be way less entries, unlike other art places.
Overall, I'm still trying hard to make quality content, but I have less and less time to do so.