The facts are obvious. Meriting is easier but it's the other way round when you are a source because it becomes a duty you have to use to serve a whole lot of users. The reason I'm able to merit quality most times is because I spend literally more time surfing than posting. A quality post always stands out and in my opinion isn't much difficult to find.
Quality posts are not hard to find, especially the authentic once and not people that will wake up or wait until the time they want before they post on the second page or higher, posting what that has been posted before by many users on the first page. Although, some threads are constructive up to many pages but you can easily know such threads.