I see what you are describing as an unfair system with the whales, but I don't see how that is whales taking anything from you. They receive a dividend, but how does that take anything out of your pocket?
As far as self-voting goes if it is so wrong, why does the platform itself encourage it? When you create a new post it has a checkbox encouraging you to upvote your own blog. I can't see how this is wrong if the developers, themselves, set it up that way.
RE: 500 followers milestone, thank you!