The effect of this change is a variable percent to curation rewards. An author that is already reputable gets a boost to their rewards and curators receive less because there is very little work needing to be done on behalf of curators. However, a new author is an unknown quantity and the burden falls on the curators. Curators maximize their reward by curating the unknown. Curation rewards should be a product of cognitive work, not a product of speed. This actually places the advantage back in the hands of human curators. Bots will need to wait for more information before optimally voting, however a human can comprehend content on a level bots cannot. That is extra information that bots do not have access to, which will allow a human curator to vote before a bot.

Voting on yourself implicitly has no penalty. The reward of the vote is reduced, but the remainder of the reward goes to the author. If you immediately vote for yourself, you only get 1% on the vote reward, but the other 99% is added as a reward to author. Moreover, you will receive the remainder reward with the 50/50 STEEM Dollar/ STEEM Power split.