This is an excellent breakdown of the various types of whale behavior out there. You are quite the cetologist :)
It's easy to get caught up in the "whales are ruining everything" dialog, so I really appreciate the balance you've given here along with the optimistic roadmap. Seeing whales choosing to fund the future of the platform rather than just increase their own profits is encouraging.
That said, Steemit still has a huge 1% problem (i.e., they control some 93% of the tokens, last I heard). Concentration of wealth is bad for communities as a whole, whether you're on top or on bottom, because of how the power dynamic affects relationships. A more equitable distribution of new coins is important, but how long will it take for this to translate into a more equitable distribution of held coins, if ever?
According steemwhales.com, the percentage of SP held by the 1% is 76.03%. The 93% includes all the top 10%.
While that still skewed, it is a large drop from last year. The system will distribute the reward pool as more people keep voting their 20% and taking part in the reward pool.
While individually not as powerful, when you have 30K versus 50 or 100, it can get overwhelming. The numbers of people entering and getting active should decrease the percentage of SP in the hands of a few over time.
Ah, thanks for setting the record straight. It's also good to know that there's a downward trend in the imbalance which will continue as the user base grows.
From the perspective of a minnow, it's hard to see how making penny votes will do anything to change anything, but I can see how 30k pennies is actually pretty significant. That's not to mention those who bring small investments to the platform and get a bit more voting power.
Yes @scottyeager.
It all builds upon itself. When each of us gains a bit more SP, that is more voting power, which causes every vote we give to be worth more. It might only be a percent of a cent to start, but that is only a start. Commenting is a huge thing for smaller accounts. It is hard to get upvotes on an article since most dont know who you are. But when you post, you ride the back of the author who has a following.
I have seen articles that get $10 yet some posts have $15 or $20 in the comment section.
That's certainly been my experience with comments. Actually, I just posted about this and a few other economic realities that are important for new users to understand but took me a bit to figure out.