Unfortunately, the gamification aspects of Steem really haven't turned on yet. Since no payouts will be made until July 4th, Steem is a little bit of a caste system where the only way to increase your stake is (1) buy in on the exchanges, or (2) produce blocks. I'm taking route 2, but I'm a software engineer and sysadmin, so that's easy stuff for me. The average user doesn't have a VPS lying around that he can throw a daemon on to make him money in the background, and wouldn't know how if he did.
After the payouts start, I hope to see the caste broken, and brand new users with their free stake start developing much, much higher stakes, and thus becoming more powerful voters. For now, though, if you've got a small stake, it's just gonna stay that way unless you invest more than just posting/voting.
Unfortunately, the gamification aspects of Steem really haven't turned on yet. Since no payouts will be made until July 4th, Steem is a little bit of a caste system where the only way to increase your stake is (1) buy in on the exchanges, or (2) produce blocks. I'm taking route 2, but I'm a software engineer and sysadmin, so that's easy stuff for me. The average user doesn't have a VPS lying around that he can throw a daemon on to make him money in the background, and wouldn't know how if he did.
After the payouts start, I hope to see the caste broken, and brand new users with their free stake start developing much, much higher stakes, and thus becoming more powerful voters. For now, though, if you've got a small stake, it's just gonna stay that way unless you invest more than just posting/voting.