Until the whales actually vote on promoted content, it's just a waste of your money. Look at promoted. It doesn't get you any sort of "elite" audience. It gets you upvotes from people who think that "boost" is money they will get.
So you spend money to promote your content. That money is gone. No whale ever looked at it. Unless you already had their attention from somewhere else, they aren't going to dive through promoted and upvote you. I've seen some stellar content with mad "promoted" amounts, never see the $0.50
May as well just light a cigar with the cash.
The promoted system would be MUCH better if it were just a bonus for upvotes system in order to give curators an extra boost.
Well written post, but the reality is you should not waste money like this unless you're a business trying to get attention and wanting to advertise.
First off thank you for the compliment @williambanks (is that a fresh prince referance? Awesome if so!) Secondly, while I dont disagree that you're likely mostly right at this moment, I don't have nearly as much pessimism about its future. That was sort of my point, nobody has any real answers yet. You say whales never look at it but youre working on assumptions based on such a tiny sample size that it's tough to make such strong conclusions about them. And even if it is in fact true today, what's to say it's going to stay that way forever? Id rather focus on what I can personally control, which is making good content and allocating some of my rewards towards my own personal "advertising" budget. You know?