The bitter truth, I realised what you want to express. But still quality posters are rewarded by merits. Instead of thinking about earning merits, if someone focuses on learning and contributing to the forum, it's still possible to earn merits and rank up. It looks like you are irritated by the methods of how users are spending their merits.
There are different reason for which someone might want merit, I am not looking into that right now in this case. For example, someone might try to contribute a lot and then be disappointed with the amount of merit that they've received. Merit could be seen as a proxy metric for validation of contribution by some. Wrong or right? Who cares, that is how these things will be perceived by some people.
I've said it before somewhere, merit here is basically like an Instagram style like button. The seniors have fully corrupted it to the core and turned it into a popularity contest, not a metric of quality as it is intended. There are many private merit blacklists and emotions involved where they should be none, plenty of "I won't merit you because I don't like you" or "I will merit my own people a lot" stuff is going on.
If I have very little of something, why would I give it away? This question can only be really asked of merit sources, not of average users. I like hoarding my sMerit. Sometimes I use it to acknowledge a good post that I have read but will not reply to, effectively ending the discussion with that (at least temporarily).
It's true no one is forcing you to spend your merits, but if all the users think this way, then merit circulation will drop. I admit merit sources are obliged to spend their merits; otherwise, they will lost them. But there is no benefit if you are hoarding your merits as well. From your perspective you can reward as well, and so far I can see you are spending your merits as well. I often encourage merit holders to help other users; just follow your own standards and reward what you think is a quality post. You can measure quality posts based on your own criteria, but help other users. That is also a kind of contribution to the forum.
Most of the merit being given comes from merit sources, they are the ones that should not be conservative with their merits like I am. I don't think that my decision to be conservative has a lot of impact on the overall distribution of merit ohe forum. Anyway, I am not a good example to use at all because I am extremely hesitant to give lowly ranked members merit (this is also wrong, but in 99.9% of the cases they are posting junk so the practice currently is valid) due to the number of account farmers around here. Lastly, any system that does not have coercion for a specific way of behaving will have all kinds of members. Some will be very liberal with it, others will be very conservative with it. Neither is wrong because they balance each other out. If everyone was very liberal with the merit, the account farmers would have it much easier than they already do.
For real you have said something true and just the fact, as it is what it is and it is now becoming more and more the actual situation. The real posts that deserves the merits are not even gaining them but they're some comments you'll see that they give merits to, you'll begin to doubt the process. But hell yeah, they have the right to choose who they want to give them (merits) to so we can't come out to question their decisions.
The thing is that only very few merit behaviors are disallowed and they are often very hard to prove, especially behaviors that relate to biased merit giving. Proving intent is hard, and someone can always mount up all kinds of defenses ranging from "I didn't read that post or find it interesting" to all sorts of things. Because of this it is unlikely that a member can create change in this system. Therefore, if you need merit for whatever reason just adapt yourself into the process and the system, and keep quiet. Don't cause trouble to get yourself into the spotlight, that is how most of the farmers or even average members are doing it.
