Have you ever heard of Yours.org ? In that site you earn immediately and it is very democratic. It is not that you have to invest to have vote power... you just vote anyone you want, and people do the same based on the quality of your contributions. It is more meritocratic... I feel Steemit is too much hierarchical ... also you need to wait 7 days before payout, on Yours you get in an instanct. Today I earn over 30$ on Yours and 0.28 cents on Steemit.