I agree, lack of karma shouldn't say anything negative about your inclusion in the community here. The info is free, so it's not like only major contributors belong.
In fact, if it were the case that only the high karma belong, there'd be nothing to contribute to and no high karma. People like kashif and the thousands of other lurkers are why this community exists in the first place, much more so than nickb or any of the other leaders.
Speaking for myself, I have a high karma because I'm a slacker. I consider it an inverse metric of my worth.
Simple: karma as a measure of your contributions to the community is not perfect, but it is much better than nothing at all. Do you know a better system?
That is not a response to the original chain of thought. Nonetheless, karma might be an unnecessary tool for the necessary effect.
Do you know a better system?
Yes, I am suggesting an alternate mechanism which uses only voting on submissions and comments while discarding individual karma.
Finally, as a supposed 'lurker', it might serve me better not to login and just read submissions instead of participating by voting. Clearly, voting and commenting are also measures of 'being in a community'. So as lurkers stop logging in they cannot vote and then voting drops making the submission rankings either volatile or static.
I do not understand your line of reasoning.