"Fortunately, any work that is getting a large concentration of votes is also gaining the most scrutiny (publicity). Through the addition of negative-voting it is possible for many smaller stakeholders to nullify the voting power of collusive groups or defecting large stakeholders."
From the STEEM Whitepaper
What does this mean?
It mean that a group of small fish can neutralize a whale. Also this mean that post that get a lot of votes and money get on top. So people should take time to look at those post and see if they are legit. If they are not people should down vote it (flag it). One thing is important to remember is that yes you can make some quick money but you can also lose your reputation which for me has a lot more of value.
I think a lot of people are wandering if Steemit is fair or not. I don't want to argue if it is or not that is not the point. My point is that steemit has a mechanism to regulate the system. There is alot of power in numbers. Imagine if you saw a post with 10,000$ and 777 votes but 333 downvotes (Flagged).
Would it catch your attention?
What if it was 3333 down votes?
more than 80% of the voting power is in the hands of a few whales. minnows even if united currently won't be able to neutralize whales.
in the future as mass adoption takes place . then yes the swarn effect may have real impact.
btw jn case you don't know there's a thread trending about minnows. clearly milking on your work
https://steemit.com/minnowsunite/@dana-edwards/minnows-have-strength-in-numbers
maybe ask her to at least put a link to your minnow manifesto or something.
One problem with this is that very few minnows/noobies wish to risk alienating or pissing-off a whale. I have seen at least one comment where someone complained of revenge-voting!
Perhaps in the very long run, but a whale could easily ensure that a minnow's posts, especially those calling out such revenge tactics, never see the light of day. They could do this automatically with a bot, similar to how the anti-spam bots work.