The subsidy system as in ZapRead is even better in many ways. This is due to the fact that by voting for the content you vote only for the best (in your opinion).
The Steem system is the worst in economic terms because you give money that is not yours to another person you probably don't know. (As in socialism).
For example, I like BernieSanders, but I wouldn't give him a grant probably. But I don't pay anything for Steem, so I could give it to him for nothing.
As for Stake. In general, you freeze the funds in your account, but these funds were created from the air. In most cases you didn't pay for the tokens (but I can be wrong), like most of us. Stake is supposed to stop Steem from falling, but if the situation gets worse, people will evacuate and withdraw money from Stake, what's going on.
Hard Fork 21 is supposed to try to prevent it. There will be less liquid, more frozen.
I guess there's always some kind of loss in the system. Someone has to pay for the fact that you get tokens, sometimes for nothing.