You're right, it was much easier to gain some STEEM at the very beginning, when we didn't have so much automation, bid-bots and SP delegation. We had a small but active community and it was much easier to catch someone's attention or get a nice upvote from a random person.

Steemit has changed since then, but that doesn't mean it has stopped attracting bloggers and creative people who are trying to earn some extra money or find new audithory.

...and who knows, maybe in 5 years 1 whole STEEM will be so rare and expensive as 1 Bitcoin is today.