Well said, to add up to this, a person that is reading a post and feels a touch of something insightful or impactful will want to merit such post provided that he have smerits to give or is a merit source, quality post is not what some people think about it as from their own way of reasoning, a poster should not judge for his post being a quality one except when another person come across it and see some taught in it.
Making a posts is never consider to be easy but making a comprehensive posts that will portrayed ditch meaning to others and become important source for contributions needs thoroughly enough time. Merits are the core factor that attached a member to become dedicated to the system, he would do everything humanly possible to earn merits and boosts the level of his account.
Not everyone will do everything to earn merit, some will do that but some will not.
There are people in the wall observer street thread that don't really care about merit but they keep posting so it's not the merit system that keeps people attach but what they pose to get from the forum. if you are getting the best information that is giving a good income you wouldn't think of merit in this forum but it's just a system that is more reliable to put people in their places and help reduce scam too.
To op just try and make a good post and see if how many is required to give someone merit