Agree! I always try to upvote any replies to my post as well :)
As to the issue of minnows not getting 'meaningful' curation rewards, hard to admit but I agree with this as well lol.
Their however is a significant increase on the curation reward if the bots vote after the minnows, a minnow will most likely get around $0.10-$0.15 instead of the usual $0.001 SP. A definite increase but kind of useless one :)
I enjoy this nice and fruitful discussion with you :)
In my previous experiment, I was a relative early upvoter on a post. At the time I upvoted, it was at $1.87. Later on all the bots came in. That post ended up over $400. My curation reward was only 0.012 SP.
May be it was because my STEEM POWER was too low.
Sounds about right. I had the same experience. Upvoted at exactly 30minutes at 100% with payout less than $5, and got around $0.011 SP in reward. My SP at that time was at 60.
Moral of the story, if your SP is less than 1k or 500, don't depend on curation rewards. :)