This might not be fair for new people, I don't know if others will ever consider to give merit to newbies. Guess I had to been registered here like 1year back to get some kind of "good" positions. Juniors and newbies are often treated poorly.
It's perfectly fair to new people. It just means that in order for you to rank up or earn Merit, you have to write high-quality posts, rather than just spam a bunch of worthless stuff. You're not being treated poorly; everyone has to write high-quality posts. The only difference is that higher ranks start with more Merit as a baseline, which doesn't provide them any kind of advantage over you.
Well it provides them with sMerit, with more sMerit to vote for other posts if I may say this. While I, myself and I DON'T HAVE THE ABILITY to give merit to others. So if you are an "old schooler" here you have more power in your hands. Same applies with getting this "merit source" status you have to be high rank to be able to give merit to others and this is not related with our knowledge or engagement within the community.
The base sMerit members have already received is a finite number. It won't take long to spend (I've already spent 50+ of my 200), and if people just hoard their sMerit, Theymos said he'll likely add a decay to it. Sure, you don't have any sMerit to give out right now, but if you write some high-quality posts (like everyone else has to), then 50% of the Merit they give you goes to your sMerit stash.
And according to Theymos' first post, becoming a "merit source" has nothing to do with rank, you just have to find 10 under-appreciated posts...