Earnings as a starting player in #Splinterlands were so tiny even before the change to needing to "stake" stuff that now with the "staking" requirement it seems bsaically impossible to "bootstrap" upwards.
Basically even when I did occassionally earn some SPS under the old system it was such a tiny fraction of a splinter that it can't even be staked since you need a whole entire one SPS in order to even begin to stake.
Now it seems impossible even to continue accumulating a fraction of an SPS every few weeks as had been possible back when sheer power of cards had been what counted.
I have not checked how much SPS a starting player could buy instead of buying cards, using their starting credits that come with the spellbook, so maybe if players had known back when they decided to try playing and bought their spellbook to do so that SPS staked was more important than owning cards they could have bought enough SPS with their starting credits to have at least that chance that total card power gave me under the old system of getting a fraction of an SPS every few seasons.
Now the whole project seems basically doomed, or maybe at least to involve looking into trying to sell off some cards to get SPS to stake or something like that.
I have not looked at how much SPS even costs as it had back then looked to be something one obtained by playing, so that resorting to buying some rather than earning them looked a lot like a "pay to win" mechanic which of course is anathema in some circles.