According to the concept of "sweat equity" stated in the Steem White Paper both contributions, labor and capital, have equal value for the community. But what we see in reality?
If you have enough money and power you can just upvote your own posts/comments like some people do. Or even do nothing, sit on your power and wait when our currency will cost 5-10-20 dollars. Does it bring value to the community? Does it help us and our currency to grow? Money must work inside of the community, not inside the one wallet.
If you are a content creator and don't have much power or money to buy votes you can rely on Minnowsupport only and maybe on a couple of your friends in getting rewards. If you write not about the Steemit and crypto are you a lower class person? How many people with high reputation or Steem power will vote for minnows and make a manual curation out of their friends circle? How can I show disagreement on rewards to a $100-200 self voter with my few-cent-worth downvote? Or to plagiarist who bought the bid-bot votes for his copy-pasted picture?
You are right about "money talks". Big money talks louder. Just like in our real world...
To be honest, I had no idea that this is even written in the white paper! Thanks for this valuable adding @erikaflynn.
According to the white paper, those who contribute their scarce time and attention toward producing and curating content for others are just as valuable as those who contribute their scarce cash.
Awesome!
Now we only have to live it :-)