The problem are not newbies who want to earn by honest writing. The problem are the mass accounts created which are professionally created in large quantities, then join signature campaigns and try to earn through bad, sometimes completely irrelevant posts. Such posts sometimes fill entire pages of threads and prevent a decent discussion. This is also a reason why many projects are no longer officially represented on Bitcointalk and have looked for alternatives like Slack, Discord or Reddit. During this time, many have developed an aversion to new users.

Three or fours years ago this wasn't really a problem, but it has become a problem in recent years. The merit system was an answer to this problem, even if it's not perfect, because it prevents the fast up-leveling of accounts, but honest new members need a long time to reach higher levels.