What, to you, would be the difference between a post where the author writes some content and keeps 100% and a post where the author writes some content, includes a contest, and pays out some portion of the rewards (even 1%) to the winner(s) of the contest? How would the latter be worse (i.e. more of a rip off or money grab or however you want to call it) than the former?

to me, it's irrelevant. I don't plan to be rich on steem so I wouldn't care so much about how much the others earn. My point is that I see double standards. that's it.