I suggest to not focus on how much sats you get for a post.

You are still new on SN and your reputation is low. You have to work on that first. Reputation is built by posting a lot of good content.

Once you have a reputation you will have also more rewards. With just one zap of 20k your post will not get on top. But with 20zaps of 100sats will stay on top long time and get more rewards. Think about that.

But yes, there is a trend on SN that old stackers could zap more sats to new users that post something good as a welcome gesture.

Keep in mind that you arrived on SN just when a new contest started MSM and users tend to zap less amount now, keeping the sats for better posts at the end.

Remember: do not consider SN an assmilking cow... You will end bad. Consider it like a better reddit, where you pay sats to post.