You're totally misunderstanding the concept of influence. Influence isn't measured by how much you get paid for each of your upvotes. It's measured by how much money you can direct to others with each of your upvotes, or deprive others with each of your downvotes.

In any event, your math is wrong. If you upvote the right posts early enough (that is, if you do a good enough job as a curator), you can earn far more than you suggest. My friend has about $8,000 worth of Steem Power (at current prices) and earned a curation award of over $150 from a single upvote. He regularly earns a $1 or more per upvote. You might want to revisit your voting strategy.