This is awesome. I hope that some new people find it and actually read it and take these words to heart. This place should not be a get rich quick scheme or seen as an only source of income. That would just lead to frustration. People need to just use this platform as a place to post what they want and if they get some votes, then that is cool.
As far as this one point you made here:
You need to buy lots of STEEM to gain support
I will say that putting some into the platform that is essentially paying you to be here does show your confidence in this place for those that have invested and have been here for a very long time and will most likely help to get some support. It shows the community that you aren't here to just take as much as you can from the reward pool.
The new people also need to realize that it takes time and a lot of work to get known and get to a somewhat successful point here. Like you said, McDonalds pays more per hour.
Agree with you about the confidence point, I'm under no misguidance that people look at the size of my wallet and yours too and it may make a difference to the vote weight.
However, the curation groups from what I have seen will dish out hefty votes if the author can deliver, though they do need to be seen for this to happen.
They do, it takes many months and I would say a year for things to start happening. There's not an easy way in unless you want to start with 1,000,000 STEEM powered up.