Merit system is highly unfavorable particularly to the new members for growing in the ranks but concept of "Merit" will attract crowd to the platform like steemit where power of liking good content is in the hands of all I think.
It is not a charity platform so don't expect "favors" here. I don't know your criteria of a good post but what i have seen till now every constructive post always rewarded with merits.
If you want to say "unfair" then let me tell you what really unfair is, when a shitposter with all the shit posts in local and off topic threads become a legendary member of this forum by just increasing his/her activities while having no knowledge of bitcoin, block-chain and cryptos.