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I have under 15,000 and my upvote at 100% is around $6.

shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit.

I'm still not quite up on how steem power works though. Doesn't it all come back to you over time?

It depends on your rewards, people like us, who can't buy Steem can only power up with the help of rewards.
Let me give you an example, suppose I earn $100 for this post, I will get a total reward of $75 as $25 would be given to curators.
Then $75 award would be divided into two parts, 50% goes to Steem Dollars and 50% to your steem power.
For us, it is better to just get the steem power and convert our SBD into steem power.

Ok cool, that's what I've been doing. But pure sent steem power eventually diminish?

"pure steem power?" means

Sorry.. Some pretty heavy auto correct typos in there. Doesn't steem power eventually diminish is what I meant.
I've been having trouble finding up to date info on how it works.

Nope, it stays in our account, however, the delegated steem power which you can see in brackets would be taken back, don't know when.