A valid, important and valuable question: I have to admit, that I also self-vote, but in the same time I vote for others too. In the moment I do self votes because I wanna finance an education and I also wanna start a beneficial charity project. For this project, I need some equipment to start with. I hope to finance a good notebook for video editing and also want to buy a webhost.
In general I would say self-voting is ok and everyone has to decide for himself what he or she does. But in terms of dolphins, orcas and whales I would say, it would be better if the vote for new and newer members - so they get more motivated and stay on the platform. I think we all want that the platform grows and grows.
I mean most of the high and higher earners already have a lot of money or their personal uses... why not helping good projects to grow. Projects which give STEEMIT outside of the platform a better reputation and help the platform to grow?
I think members with a lot of SP can make a massive difference how STEEMIT is represented outside of Steemit and they can effect everything here in general.
My wish would be, that STEEMIT transport the message, that Blockchain offers more than just financial platforms or so.... that the blockchain movement has bigger visions in terms of independency, peace, global welfare and so on...
I really hope that more and more whales will see this an unite forces to make an impact in different ways.
I am optimistic on that.
Concerning minnows and self-votes... I never would judge anyone for it, because for some people in countries with low incomes and not so good circumstances this is a blessing. Of course there should be a balance between voting others and self-votes.
Self-voting is not the issue unless one spam posts and upvotes nonsense comments but it is when they vote I question. Some vote late which costs them Curation rewards but, adds curation award value to those before them which is great for the smaller accounts and has little impact on the big voters.
Yes, some of the largest accounts have income in the real world too but I know that some also have early everything they have in Steemit and trading as they have a long-term view of the platform. I have a long-term view and struggle now for potential gains later.
There is a lot of chance for this (and other platforms) to fundamentally shift the way currencies and incomes work going into the future. It is exciting to be a part of it.
Again, self-voting isn't the issue here, just the timing involved.