I started back in 2017

This is mutual. I registered on the Steem blockchain on 2017.05.17.

If it's not worth the time or effort to put forth in your own posting then why is it important to criticize one of the biggest initiatives on the platform that rewards smaller accounts for their time and effort?

I said it is not worth it, because people usually ignore them.
Putting hours or work into a post just/only to earn a few cents and no (or only a few) comments is not worth it.

And since English is not my native language, what more, it is far from it (my native language is Hungarian, which is not even Indo-European, like English), I put double work and effort almost into anything on this platform. Just try to understand and write a Hungarian sentence. And if you feel that the challenge is easy for some reason, then try it with the Old Hungarian alphabet (traditionally written from right to left), not with the latin alphabet.