People complain about the lack of rewards all the time (I know you're not complaining here). But maybe people just need to get creative as to how they earn their rewards?

There are so many options for earning Steem. It's not only about voting on stuff or writing stuff. I do both of those things. But I also have other methods of earning here.

One is to sell a portion of my voting power on Minnowbooster. And then using those earnings to upvote my posts. I earn by selling my votes, and then earn further profit on those earnings via the paid vote from Minnowbooster.

It's a strategy that has worked for me for a long time. I've tested other services such as Smartsteem but have recently returned to Minnowbooster since it works so much better.

That's just one extra way to earn Steem. There are many. So it's not just about using your "voice". It's about being smart and working out how to best make use of your time.

I'm working away a lot at the moment so don't have a lot of time to create content. So selling my votes makes perfect sense. Then, when I have time to write, I can use my vote earnings to upvote my content as a way to extract my vote selling earnings from the Minnowbooster account.