Mining requires capital for hardware plus an ongoing cost to keep it up....very expensive for BTC, far less for others but still capital requirements...it is not simply handed out.
No I dont differentiate between the two since most use interchangeably. Plus not all blockchains issue another token on top of the original. Will that become more commonplace? I would think so...I cant believe ETH and STEEM will be the only ones to go that route. Hell once BTC implements smart contracts, they most likely will have tokens created on top.
Authoring & curating requires capital for hardware and costs for internet, etc...
Are you seriously comparing the costs of posting and curating on here to the equipment required to mine?
Get serious.
And if you have a phone, you can post and curate on here....so actually no additional expense required.
Good day.
I'm sure you could mine some type of crypto-currency with a phone.