Gotcha, ok. Well, if that's the case - if 400 votes of the minnows and dolphins don't add up to much, compared to a few whale votes, then I'd agree with you.
The whales that refrain from automatically upvoting other whales are definitely supporting Steemit as a community, and displaying good integrity and Steemit spirit!
Of course, ultimately it's a problem in the way Steemit finances are structured. Anyone should be able to upvote anyone, without it greatly affecting the bloggers who are low on the totem pole.
Papa-pepper has 72 reputation and over 1100 followers.
almost 300 votes on this post, and only $4 profit.
Proof of followers:
Pfunk is definitely getting his wang worked on by other whales, and this is on a consistent basis, just go look at the upvotes on his posts, notice a trend in the top names? I don't know if there is, but I can almost bet there is the same people upvoting pfunk's posts.
I do pretty good myself, and I love steemit, but, I mean, honestly, I don't care, just pointing out that the power houses of this platform plan on keeping themselves in power.
EDIT: I was curious so I went and looked and I was right almost every post with a payout of over $200 is upvoted by the same whales, and these same whales, are the same whales that downvote A LOT OF MINNOWS posts for unknown reasons.
I'm new, So what you guys are suggesting is that by having so much steam, and up voting they have way more influence and can lift certain accounts? for example this Pfunk account?