What you say is absolutely correct and I agree with 100%. I am looking to be in this long term and, yes, I do want to be one of the trending people. My reasoning is simple...I want to carry voting power that makes a different to people. I would love to be able to read about a hardship case in one of the poorer countries and with a single upvote give that person $4 or $5. When people are in that situation, that type of money makes a huge difference.
I also want to help others develop a nice income stream themselves so if I can advance my abilities on here while having a higher ranking, I can help others who just arrive.
Yes, this is a good perspective. How I see it is that at the moment, I can mainly add value through content alone but in time I may have the possibility to help financially also. The long-term view of charity requires a constant development of the self to best provide for others.