Like in the real world money talks. The more money the bigger the voice. I wish all whales would share in their wealth among all minnows and therefore lifting everyone's bottom line. But the reality is most whales got to where they are by strategically investing what they see as best ROI. So wrong or right they see this as a business transaction and a self upvote is collecting their interest.
But personally I feel this will ruin steemit if we allow the biggest investors the majority control of the reward pool. Why is there not a limit on how much one can upvote themselves or limit on self voting pyramid scheme? Where minnows have unlimited self upvotes but when you reach to a whale limited to once a day? Not difficult to do and there would be a better distribution of rewards. The drawback is this would seem to not be a decentralized system because users are being limited and less willingness from users to invest money into steem.
Yet I thought the main goal of steemit was to be a social blockchain where everyone has their own words shared to all. The earnings should go to the ones who perform the most toward benefiting steemit. Not the ones who has the deepest pockets.