RE: 500 followers milestone, thank you!
First question.Whales put their steem power into bot and get daily dividents from that. I put 350euro into system and converted to steem dollars. I pay steem dollars for upvote which is slightly bigger than I pay, but it is taken by curation reward. whales get passive income from bot, I break even with hope that will attract other votes.
Second question. If everybody only upvote itself, there is no upvoting others and this all platform have no sense. No content, no matter how brilliant will not get upvoted more than your own vote. Of course, you and everybody will drop few votes on others but that is leftover of selfvotes. I saw few people who left comment, self-voted by 100% and for post just give 10% One comment before you, had even a bot who left same text to all newcomers with 30cents upvote from his other account. Do you think that he would waste his time curating good content when he has a money producing machine?... I see you are not the case who only selvotes, but if you feel unsure about voting bots, I was unsure about selfvoting ;)
I see what you are describing as an unfair system with the whales, but I don't see how that is whales taking anything from you. They receive a dividend, but how does that take anything out of your pocket?
As far as self-voting goes if it is so wrong, why does the platform itself encourage it? When you create a new post it has a checkbox encouraging you to upvote your own blog. I can't see how this is wrong if the developers, themselves, set it up that way.
I dont say it is wrong but imagine this. You find this platform when it starts, when 1 steem costs few cents and each post earns big reward. You acumulate tokens worth nothing outside of this platform. If you want to cash them out, you need new commers who buy them from you for real money. I added some euro so somebody could cash their tokens. They have so many but create even more for themself with each selfvote or bots they control. I need to buy all possible bot votes to get my post at the same place in trending as some whale with single selfvote. That is why self voting will not change. you give yourself 4 cents with 100% while sweetsssj will put a post, selfvote with 71usd, than another whale friend give her another 60usd. They are witnesses who decide about it and why would they change if it works. How can we compete? You could be best writer, your post will not be seen anyways. Just dream and invest real money to reach their level, while they know it is not possible at this stage...
From what I just read, it appears that you chose, freely, to invest in Steem and play the game. Again, how is that an example of Whales taking advantage of you? If you don't like it, why did you do it?
Because all whales who make videos on youtube, say come and play with us and show how much they make and create illusion that you can be succesful. You are needed to push this message on your social media and bring more users. After a while you will realize that you are only needed as a number so more content is created, then as a new investor so they can cash some steem. If they all try to sell it at once, the price will drop to close to zero. The game is rigged, like real economy, but you will realize that soon. Untill then, have fun! I wish you all the best!