Thanks for info, for the record I'm not a whale (my SP is far from amounts that can negate such payouts) and it's not a scam, it's just (subjectively) overpaid content. Sad thing is that sometimes users can't understand that this harms the platform in a long run.

I will ask few reputable top voters if it is intended (sometimes it's just curation trial that is not working as expected or abused by those who used to create/curate high quality content).