Having more Steem value does have a major impact on earning steem power obviously and it makes your voting power also more valuable (and therefore desirable, which in turn attracts more viewers)

Yes, have to agree with you on not wasting time online but investing it with steemit.com - In the past 10 years of my life I earned nothing writing countless FB posts, blog posts and whatnot. 3 months in steemit and I've already earned a few hundred dollars worth of Steem (not much by community standards but it is a big thing for anybody who never earned a penny for social media participation before).