Not sure if anyone has already mentioned this or not but a few months ago some whales got together and decided they were going to downvote other whales because most of the voting pool was being drained by these whales.

So by downvoting these whale it gave everyone else a bigger chunk of the voting pool.

For example before the downvoting I had 1500 steem power and my up vote along was worth zero cents. Now I have 1900 steem power and my vote is worth around three cents. Lots of people hated it at first and didn't understand but as soon people saw their posts earning more without a whale then it was ok.

Most of the whales have stepped back and let everyone else use up the voter pool. the ones that do still votes use a fraction of their voting power.