Hmm... I agree, but in some ways also disagree (and yes, this is coming from a fellow minnow whose account isn't worth jack right now).
I do agree that there are a great number of fabulous articles on here written by minnows that don't get the credit (or upvotes) they deserve. It sucks to be in that position.
What I disagree about is setting the reward limit to $500. For all the "whales" on here who could literally write a shitty, one-sentence post and make $1,500, have you ever thought about the effort they have put into everything they have previously done? If you look at most of those peoples' accounts, they have been on here for 6 months to a year, day in day out, consistently posting, re-steeming and upvoting content. It's kind of a whale perk to be able to make more money with less effort. This perk can be yours, too, if you keep at it and contribute to the community.
Now, there are some YouTubers who have migrated over to Steemit and immediately started banking it with little effort, but the way I look at it, they spent lots of time and effort building their audience over at YouTube. It's not easy to create and maintain a successful YouTube channel.
Remember, instant gratification doesn't exist anywhere. Not even here. Maybe the current system is protecting people from themselves in a weird sort of way.
Thanks for the comment @cali-girl! I am very happy and grateful that those who came before me have done such a great job of building a fantastic platform. However, if we look to the 'real world' we can also see evidence of our societies and communities being built up by individuals at their own expense, using their own time, effort and energies. That being the case does that justify them retaining the vast majority of power over thge likes of me and you who now have to live in it? If the logic you suggest is acceptable on steemit then it must also be true in the real world so we should not be complaining about big oil or big pharma or any other industry that sucks the life blood out of ourselves and our world because it was these industries that built the world we live in today. Just because some have built steemit into what it is now does not mean that they must retain all power. Those who benefit from any system are very unlikely to want to change that system to help others when in doing so they may lose out somehow.
I am open minded to being wrong on this but would have to have a very good explanation as to why!
Thanks again @cali-girl.
Hope your day is going well!