Everyone is investing money in one way or another, whether it is cash or time its all valuable.

Yes I wanted to tell the same thing, everybody has some contribution and investment on steem whether it's money or time or something else.
I don't blame you,you must have missed that thread, but I have seen a fight between a well known witness and a random blogger(older), well I didn't know all the history behind that fight but the User(witness) was shouting at blogger telling that he didn't have any real investment and all of his SP are just earning..bla bla in conclusion he wanted to tell the blogger that he had no contribution to the platform but profits .....