I don't understand how whales that are not voting are helping minnows? As far as I see it -
The author rewards they generate greatly exceed the curation rewards they receive. At least 3-4 times, even if a whale is first to upvote. So for every Steem Power a whale earns in curation rewards, the minnow earns 3x as much. Granted, some minnows may choose to cash out SBDs instead of Powering Up, but still the SP earned exceeds the curation rewards SP earned by whales.
They could simply vote within the first few minutes if they wanted to bypass their curation rewards. Or as alluded to above, vote on posts late, that have already gotten some attention from other whales. If they vote on a post that has already gained some attention, author's rewards they generate could be 10x as much as their curation rewards.
They could donate the curation rewards back to the author.
The rate their Steem Power is growing well exceeds the rate at which minnows are growing influence if they effectively do nothing. The Top 15 whales own 25 Million Steem Power. Every week, their Steem Power grows at least 0.5 Million (and higher than 1 Million right now, given inflation rate is much higher). That's more than the total holdings of 94% accounts on Steem. Net effect - there's zero re-distribution of wealth.
Please let me know if I'm missing out on something here. As far as I see it, there are only two ways for whales to help minnows gain influence - voting on them, or selling (ideally, donating) them Steem to Power Up.
I'm eager to hear more about the Delegated Curation Guilds proposal. I hope Steemit, Inc. take Richard's advice and explain clearly, precisely, as well as in detail. We are still waiting for a clear explanation on HF14's Vote Balancing. Something that shows clear case studies of before and after, in charts. As, many have pointed out here, not more than a dozen people know the algorithms and metrics behind this unpopular move, and that's a big problem.
I understand Val's comments were made in the heat of the moment, but they hurt the company's reputation badly, particularly as we are still waiting for an apology.
You are missing one thing...the more whales that vote the more worthless every other lesser vote becomes... usually by a couple of orders of magnitude.
This is a very important critique of the planned changes. I hope the Steem Team will read it and consider the questions you are posing.
If @razvanelulmarin is right which I'm pretty sure he is, not voting is helping those who are voted by other whales. His post is interesting and people could gain from reading it.
https://steemit.com/steemit/@razvanelulmarin/i-will-become-a-whale-in-24hours-here-s-how