Nice writeup. I'd like to weigh in on curation:
Some of the previously most influential bots stop as well. The reason is simple - without whales to frontrun the ROI is pretty minimal.
This is a misconception. My bot clients and I are seeing the best curation rewards that we've had in many months: https://steemdb.com/@biophil/curation
The reason is simple! Because the whales aren't voting, the ratio of payout to rshare is larger. Thus, the ratio of curation reward to rshare is larger.
Think of it this way: if there were exactly 1 voter in Steem, he would take all of the curation rewards. If there are 2 voters, they would have to split the curation in some way. It's the same here - without all the whale rshares in the mix, everybody participating in curation is earning more.
It's a very strange incentive problem. Others have pointed this out as well: curation in Steem is a tragedy of the commons; curation incentives are intrinsically self-defeating. If there is money to be made curating, then more people will curate, which will reduce the amount of money to be made curating.
That's because you have effectively a whale trailing you. With the other whales gone, your whale trail's influence is dramatically greater. Earlier it was a gamble of when the larger whales would vote, now you can just make many more votes and reap in guaranteed rewards. Probably save for you, @steemtrail and @ats-david, no other curator can boast of a guaranteed whale trail. So your case is clearly an exception.
PS: Also, Curie curators, if you are good curator with a high approval rate anyway.
PPS: With other bots like wang and summon gone, along with many manual curators, you also have much less competition.
I was going to disagree with you, but then I checked the recent rewards of my clients, and you're right. Theirs haven't increased nearly as much as mine. I've created my own whale train. Oops.
What this means is that there is a lot of money to be made currently by someone who can figure out how to front-run my bot. Free whales!
Haha, yes, a bot to front-run a bot!
Heh, that's a game @wang and I have played a time or two. :)
I'm sure! @wang's VP is up to nearly 100%. Who would have thought?
What a time to be alive!