Why is it more important to have one person (a whale) read your amazing posts than 10 people? Only cos you hope to get votes and rewards, or cos you care about the people who follow you?
As @ilyastarar mentioned in other comment, quality is a subjective thing.
I reather have 10 minnow follow our blog that actually care about the topic, than 1 whale that only see the financial gain in voting on a post.