Maybe I am wrong, but I belive the value of steem is a consequence of the potential percieved and/or realized by steemit and other(?) steem plataforms. That's what makes people buy steem, the future potential of all this, not the short-time reward they can make upvoting themselves.

That being true, newcomers actually are showing there is real potential for steemit to reach mass adoption and without it -
being a small club of investors - steem worth close-to-nothing unless those investors are willing to invest more and/or never cashout.

For that reason, I completly disagree with your perception of newcomers as cost and I belive that if most whales see things the same way you, steem is not landing anywhere close to the moon and I will probably lose those 500 usd I invested in steem potential.