It depends on how you view things. You may think of Steemit as Facebook, and perceive Steem as Likes. Or you can try to view Steemit in a way the founders presented it - as a platform owned by its users, where they get paid for original content.
Original content takes time and effort to produce, it's not like reposting a cute kitty video a million times (which only makes Zuckerberg richer and rarely the original author).