There are two sides of the coin here and this is why I upvoted two different comments that express it, but not your post.

[—1—]The first side is the point you make where indeed we live in a free-market and the people who pioneered are rewarded. No problem with that since they spread the earnings to the rest. We are all thankful for this.

[—2—]The second side is focusing more on the ideology of Steemit and this is where most people lost their shit. It was advertised as decentralised, even anarchic but it is not. It has no difference from oligarchy and plutocracy.

...

Which brings us to the 3rd and most important point. If people see that it is basically a scheme, no different than the one in the outside world then they won't buy into it.

I explain both of these points in a past article

https://steemit.com/anarchy/@kyriacos/no-steemit-is-not-anarchic-so-what-is-it