There are no "whales" on minds, no mass down voting, and no dystopia. "Bid bots" are conceptually built into the system as a feature called "boost". I've earned over 10 Minds tokens without investing anything or having my money trapped as steem power, and without really trying. When boosting 1 Minds token = 1000 views. There are much bigger names and personalities on Minds and the content is higher quality because although boosting puts you in front of more eyes it doesn't guarantee an upvote.