To be honest, I do feel that Steem is pretty fair. Sure, a lot of articles probably took a lot of time to write and they might be very well written and still not get a lot of attention, even after having spent some time on the platform. Still, I am a firm believer that if one does simply engage in discussions and show appreciation for other good posts, then someone will check out your blog, and when they do, some of them will upvote your good posts and some of them will follow you. Sure, their votes might not be worth much, but as your account grows, so will theirs and so will their voting power. In the end, I think the solution is to just keep producing quality content and accept that success doesn't always come over the night.