"THen it truly becomes the pyramid scheme a lot of people make it up to be"

No, the opposite is true. I was going to write a post about it.
If you have to put money in (by paying for Steem Power), but this money can only go to those already here (because you have to grow your user base before you really start earning money) you end up with a hierarchy similar to that of a pyramid scheme.

One of things stopping it being a pyramid scheme is that you can upvote yourself if you want to - you have some say where the money goes.

Now, it may be argued that money does go to 'lower value' members, which is true, but the majority goes to those who have been here longer, and the more the invested the more successful they are likely to be.