Pete, me old mukka, there is a finite rewards pool, so we need some reasonable way to distribute it. You are actually making more than many. You have nearly 2000 followers, but most are probably inactive. @papa-pepper has been part of the community for a long time and has 22k followers who are likely to include some big accounts who still support him.

If everyone's vote was worth the same them we would all create dozens of sock puppets to vote is up. Instead those who have either invested money or earned a lot of Steem get more influence.

It was actually worse in the past as there was a non-linear relationship between stake and influence.

I think you are being disingenuous (my word of the week) to the witnesses. Those I've met care about making Steem a viable platform for all. They are not getting rich off it. Compare Steem earnings with what top YouTubers make. Mind you, anyone can earn something here. In the early days it was a little crazy with some making thousands per post whilst I made cents. They adjusted the rules to get better distribution.

I mostly only make a couple of bucks per post and I've been really active. There are cliques who support each other and people vote strategically to maximise their curation rewards. No system is perfect. At least there is less buying of votes these days.

Posting about the unfairness of rewards is not likely to get you much, but you don't have to be a total sycophant either.

If Steem did get to millions of users then we might see some celebrities mashing big bucks whilst the rest of us scrabble for breadcrumbs, but if the price is went up that might still be worthwhile. The fact is that billions use social media for zero financial reward and they could earn here. They have that option. That is part of why I have fought to make Steem better.

Is my comment longer than your post?