Your voice is worth something. But for how long? I've read some people bemoan the 4 week reward cutoff here, and can understand their frustrations.
Considering how much traffic some pages will get from Google, long after they were created, something should perhaps be done to reward contributors in the longer term. But it might not need to come from the platform. The community itself could decide to embrace the evils of ADVERTISING!
One solution which contributors could take into their own hands, would be to place affiliate adverts within their own content. A dedicated Steemit orientated affiliate network might even emerge in time. I've already seen some affiliate links here on Steemit, and as long as they are used in moderation, (and they are usually declared) they have so far not been met with any resistance. Affiliate links, be they in text form or using dynamic graphics, are often (and ideally) relevant to the content, so you might see an advert for camera lenses on a blog about photography, or the link could be somewhat discreetly placed within the text.
As a reader, would an advert in the middle of an article perturb you?
Or perhaps you would be happy to know that the author has a long term chance of earnings. Perhaps it all really depends on where the author draws the line between reasonable affiliation, and spam.
Flipping the table, as an author, would you be prepared to place adverts in your content, if the chance of some passive income was there? I think that's one of the issues with Steemit for people coming from a more conventional blogging and "internet marketing" background - Unless you're a "Sure-Shot" with copious fans and follow-bots, Steemit in its current incarnation does not give you stability or consistency.
As a quick example of a content creator who is making a living from carefully placed adverts, leading photography writer, Neil van Niekerk uses both graphical advertising, and contextual affiliate links in his blog, but it doesn't bother me. His content is amazing and he remains extremely popular in the photo community.
Passive Income.
Passive income is very appealing for anyone with inconsistent lifestyles, schedules or indeed, health. Imagine having some money trickle in during periods when you're ill or busy. That's the safety net of passive income, and only a long term strategy for milking value from your content can achieve this.
I'm especially interested to hear peoples thoughts on this as readers. Would you flag or mute someone who included adverts in their content? I'm sure some may be utterly disgusted by the idea of advertising being placed on Steemit. Please, don't shoot the messenger! Rather than flag me - let's discuss it below!
Thanks for reading. This post started off as a response to 
I'm very interested to hear peoples views on this subject. Please let me know in the comments!
Colour images courtesy https://pixabay.com/
Main vintage image is public domain.