'by a couple of whales' This is precisely part of the misunderstanding. Most of what is going on is a large number of whales (i.e. stakeholders who have every right to vote or not vote as they see fit) deciding not to vote (or vote low power) in order to leave the majority of the influence in the hands of the broader user base. The downvotes by Hive account@abit and myself are only a small part of it, though it is the part where the UI issues most come into play.