Well, it rewards early adopters like Facebook would reward its early investors. Is say in this case, more people profit than in the regular VC funding approach.
In terms of the content, getting some money is better than getting no money, but I do believe you're right. This platform will most likely always be linked to the monetary aspect first, and the content will suffer. I think the Steem power is ingenious, but i don't think it's enough for people to really feel invested and in need to upvote only top quality posts. I guess time will tell.
I'm a bit bummed myself, invested the time into writing a really long and cool intro and that was below $100, and posted something interesting yesterday as well, that didn't even make it to $1 ... for now I'll keep writing, but it's looking incredibly unlikely that any sort of meaningful side income can be made here, unless you're top 5% or something.
I guess time will tell..
Sounds like you're doing pretty well so far, I've only made like 23 cents off my skeptical replies :) It's crazy to me that Intro posts are even making as much as they do, I mean how much value would you place on someone making an intro about themselves? I honestly don't see how these post valuations can be sustained and pretty sure it won't be long until mosts posts are earning zero and the good stuff only gets a few cents... unless of course the two dev overlords who control a majority of the coins like your content... not really sure how this is supposed to be decentralized system.