They didn't need to. They just had to come in early. In 2016 inflation was 100% if I remember well what I've read. So that was a quick doubling of their SP, nothing to do. I think I saw somewhere that the price of the MV was something like 180 Steem at some point. Now we are at almost 500 Steem per MV. Then in march 2017 the price of steem was 1/10 of what it's now. Those who bought then (congrats) and power up made a x10 ! Then when the platform only had 70 000 users, if you knew a couple of whales it was much, much easier to get upvotes from them (simply because there wasn't so much content around to fight for the votes)

But I agree with you that I was tired when I wrote that and let myself be brought down by pesimism. I fully agree with you on this one:

Do you not believe those who are participating now, before the "take over" occurred, so to speak, would not flourish?

At the end of the day, I must say that my involvement with Steemit has done nothing but improve my life and my financial circumstance. I may not be privy to all the inner-working of why that may be, exactly; but, I'm not gonna stop now :))

Neither will I ! :-)