Exactly. Maybe the Steem rewards for upvotes are not so critical for the infrastructure here. At the moment we have 12 sock puppets witnesses that are not even able to handle the price feed. This messes with the rewards. If you power up and start interacting on the platform with the community that should be encouraged directly.

But if you want to have a say in governance, voting witnesses and such, voting rights should be earned 'gradually' over time.

I'm tagging @theoretical here.