This one Chart sums it all up. If you look at Steemit before July 4th, there were fewer than 500 posts per day. then after June 4th it got to maybe 800. and between the 5th and the 13th of July it climed up to 4,500 posts a day. And now, it is at nearly 8,000 posts per day. And that is within a 17 day period. So 17 days ago, the Whales only had to Upvote maybe 10 posts a day, and over time that reached everyone (200-500 posts a day). But now (8,000 posts a day), a Whale could do 5x the work, and not even reaching 50% of people on the site, leaving 50%-80% a day thinking that the Whales are doing anything. And that's if they did 5x the curating they did before July 4th. They probably actually are doing a lot right now, and just don't even realize that there are so many people often times not even getting a penny on any post.
This will balance itself out as more and more people become Dolphins and Whales, it has only been 17 Days since July 4th, and now the Sign Up is Invitation only. So now there is a Pool that isn't having new people added to it at a rate of 3,000 new sign ups a day. And the wealth can redistribute itself through the upvotes, and value will actually be added to the site. Over the next 1-6 months, there are going to be Topics that get big traction on Steemit. For example, Music. What happens when the first Musician comes to Steemit? Or the first company like Vevo? Or what happens when people start posting their Podcasts on Steemit, and Live Broadcasts. Live Broadcasts could go on for Hours, meaning that a post on Steemit with a Live Broadcast could have Live content happening in the Original post as people are commenting. This will add a whole other dynamic to Steemit.
This is hardly getting started, don't worry about how much you make right now, but keep posting good content. Over the next few months there will be a lot more people with voting power, and even the .01cent and .05cent and .10cent votes will add up to big payouts just because there will be so many in the near future.
The chart says it all. The STEEM Power distributed around the community just has to catch up with the growth.