I agree. I've been on Steemit for a while (my first post was 2 months ago, before the first payout). I haven't really made many posts so haven't built much of a reputation or become very well known to the others who were here early on (including the whales). As such, most of my posts have received very few upvotes and rewards.

The massive increase in content over the past few weeks has really impacted on the visibility of posts. People that have been here a while are still only human. They can only read and vote on so many posts each day. I expect it's true that they check out content from contributors they have read before and liked just like you might be more inclined to read a book from an author you've enjoyed reading before. I don't see it as not being part of a 'Club' of early adopters. I think it's more that it's hard to get noticed. I kind of think about Steemit as a lottery - your post is your ticket, the odds of winning are low, but you have to be in it to win it!

BTW @voltarius - read your gambling post, gave you an upvote.