You know, I understand why whales , for the most part, have decided to upvote alot of that content. When attempting to build a new platform and pull in content generators, it is necessary to prove that creating and publishing content on this site has better value than using existing platforms they currently favor (such as Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Patreon and so on). The quickest and easiest way of achieving this is through massive upvoting of content showing people living exclusively off STEEM or generate quality click bait. I understand the rationale for that.

I think there are some very serious unintended consequences of this. What they are doing intentionally or unintentionally is creating a negative self reinforcing mechanism that could seriously hurt or destroy the long term success of STEEM. When more and more of the content generators who are trying to make a quick buck, live the Kardashian lite lifestyle, and so on accumulate more and more STEEM power, they become the dolphins searching for and upvoting more of the same content for curation rewards because it's easy more than anything. In many ways since they have not really invested much time nor truly worked to create quality content. Once the platform goes, they really have lost no real skin and are not as invested as quality content generators would be.

Combine this with the downvote button, which I believe has no positive redeeming value and serves only as a tool for abuse. For instance, I generated content recently which caught the eye of whales and was upvoted for some decent rewards, but within the span of the final 2 hours, that reward was more than halved because of aggressive downvoting. If downvoting only served to push down the ranking, there might be some argument to possibly keep it, but when it also removes rewards, it's a tool for jealous abuse and is tantamount to theft (in my mind) from creators as a whole. I believe that current payouts for content serve to reinforce my argument on this topic. My reflexive instinct was to stop generating content and move to another platform. I would imagine as this continues without consequence to other creators, more and more won't rant, they will just vote with their feet. If they receive zero rewards due to abuse on an obscure platform that made large promises to content creators, then it will come across very quickly that they are better off going back to the established platforms to do it for free anyways because at the very least, there are more eyeballs which is a tool of publicity.

Quality content requires a serious time commitment to generate and asking authors who write for Rolling Stone, Vogue, Scientific American, etc., to do so without the intent of extracting value is somewhat insincere (provided that is the hope of the site). These people write and create to feed themselves and their families. It is their job. I am not suggesting that they hit a home run every time, nor am I saying everything they create deserves a reward, but I am suggesting the system in its current form is more likely to drive them away rather than pull them in and the negative reinforcement loop the whales are creating will do some terrible damage if it's not addressed sooner rather than later. I'm hoping for the sake of the platform and what it could become for creatives and writers, something changes which, I guess, is why I have not yet voted with my feet.