Sort:  

As far as the value...from what I understand it is basically based on the rewards pool. The initial number is just an estimate. Most likely, the actual final amount will be less (though I have seen it go up).

The money is distributed via the Rewards Pool. Basically a certain, fixed amount of Steem is created everyday to be doled out as rewards. Based on all the posts that get upvotes, and the weight behind each upvote (and downvotes), it distributes the Steem accordingly as either Steem Power or SBD (Steem Blockchain Dollars). So if, on the day of your payout, there were a ton of big upvotes to lots of posts, the value across the board will go down. If there was less distribution than expected that day, it might go up. It's hard to predict.

As far as the actual amount that YOU receive, it get's broken up between 1)Beneficiaries, 2)Curators, and 3)Authors. You are the author of your post. But if you post on DTube or Busy, they might have beneficiary rules in place that allow them to take a percentage of the payout from posts that are created (or actions taken) on their platform. This is how they make money to pay for devs and encourage people to develop new platforms on Steem. The max beneficiary percentage is 25%. Then Curators (people who upvote your post) could earn up to 25% of the rewards as well, depending on when you upvote and they upvote.

The rest goes to the author as either 100% Steem Power or a 50/50 split between SP and SBD. The SP gets calculated at a 3 day average price of Steem to the USD. So, If your payout is $10, and the average price of Steem was $5, then you will receive 2 SP. SBD is where there's a weird situation. For that, it's a 1 to 1 payout. So for that same $10 payout, if you did a 50/50 split, you would receive 5 SBD, and only 1 SP. Since SBD might be worth $5 too, you actually make more money this way at the moment. Originally SBD was meant to be pegged to $1 USD. But it's now way more valuable.

So ya, not complicated at all....

Massive help as always mate thanks!

Didn't even know about the Rewards Pool so now I know about it everything sort of makes sense. I can be pretty bad for not learning about things in depth if they are working. Rely on helpful people like yourself to make it nice and bite size for me, ha!

No wonder people can be put off Steemit, certainly a higher barrier to entry than other similar platforms!

I'm gonna tell my friends not to worry about how it works, and just let the money roll in. Details Schmetails!

Awesome explaination, hepled me too :D thanks dude, followed!

Great explanation.

Well you clearly understand it enough to get a video uploaded to Dtube.

I keep getting an error. It's telling me my pass code is invalid. Which is crap because I am posting here.

Do I need to use an @ symbol in front of my handle?

Is the passcode for Steemit supposed to be the same for Dtube?

This is very frustrating because first and foremost I am a filmmaker. So, to not be able to upload content when I am doing the best I can to understand this new weird world of crypto-currency back social media is seriously bothering me.

Here's a screen shot of my failed log in. All my browsers are updated. And when I attempted to log into SteemChat again, I was denied.
Screen Shot 2018-01-18 at 1.23.13 PM.png

Mate I'm actually not sure haha! Just keep giving it a go, it was like a month ago that I signed in so I actually can't remember! I'll have a look when I'm back at my PC.

It might be a problem with logging in with either your posting key (the private one) or the active key (also the private one). You can find them both in your wallet on Steemit, under permissions I think. Try either of those BUT NOT THE MASTER KEY. Never use that unless you have lost access your account.

That's all I could think of as being the issue. That or the site just has a bug which is not unlikely. Happens a lot on these platforms since it's all very new. Or you could login via Steemconnect, which is kinda like login with facebook. Again, you'll need to know what password you should use (posting or active key) for that too...

I might be totally off though. I use a password manager, so I dont actually remember if they are at all different. Good luck though!

Hey dude, I did an shout-out to you in the end of my latest video, to thank you for helping me to understand Dtube in my first 2 weeks on the platform.

Hi mate, I watched it!

Thanks for the shout out, hopefully we can keep in touch and keep killing the Steemit game! :P

Looks like people have already answered but I might take you up on the offer of using your face in my thumbnail haha!

Haha! No worries mate, I hereby gift you free use of my face for thumbnail/clickbait purposes! :P Hehe.