The only thing that a self vote unless you are a gigantic whale impacts is whether or not some other people can get just a little bit more reward for curating you than otherwise.

I've thought about this before. It would be cooler if the self vote actually only became active after a specified length of time. That way, the auto-vote actually rewards the curators. Also why upvote bots should all have time settings.

From what I understand though, in the next hard fork, it's gonna change, where you don't get curation at all for your own post. It goes back into the pool. So in effect, you're giving a bit of extra curation to all of them for upvoting you.

I wouldn't say it's the only thing it effects though. It means you have less voting power for one, as I said.

But for those that actually do work hard, it's an act of desperation.

At the level of SP that people like you and I, and the vast, vast array of users on the platform possess, that is a really small amount of value.

It is, but I've still decided to try to vote for more, even if it kills me, and curate more, and actually try to lower my vote on some, so I can spread my vote out more to others.

I want to reward more people and spread the value

Literally just said that before reading this part. :P

I am in agreement with you as well.

You also make a persuasive argument for being more careful with my flagging, as should others. And puts the flag armies in a whole new light...

But, those rewards are also simply redistributed. Problem is that honestly, so many are doing a shitty job curating.

So, you're right, better to just try to curate some good content, because just returning it to the reward pool doesn't mean it's going to someone undervalued.