Why are Post Payouts and Voting Power going down?

Since the HF 19 euphoria has for the most part ended, (I'm still not totally down off my voting high) I've noticed a substantial decrease in my author rewards along with the monetary value of my upvote. I've been pondering why this is happening the last several days, as I imagine quite a few others have as well. I've read through quite a few other posts and found some really good explanations, but wanted to put everything together here in one place to figure it out. I'll be depending on those smarter than me to help out, so no pressure, but don't let me down. :)

Hive account@exyle brought both topics up in his vlog earlier today, and I'll rehash on what I commented earlier in that post. I had found a post from about a year ago on why author rewards will go down in value before payout. It basically stated that there is only so much Steem released on an every day basis to cover reward payouts, but that if the number of monetary upvotes exceeds this set amount in potential payouts, it will readjust all previous upvote amounts to balance this out. This is perfectly understandable and makes perfect sense. If this is right, then mystery is solved. If this is incorrect, please step forward with the correct answer and receive your noble prize, which will be a well deserved and much appreciated, "Thank you!" I know it's not much, but hey, it's the thought that counts!

On the monetary value of your upvote decreasing, that has been a little harder to discern. It has been brought up that your upvotes monetary value is directly correlated to the price of Steem, which seems perfectly logical, but I haven't been able to ascertain 100% certainty on this. Time will tell. It could just be the after effects of HF 19 slowly wearing off. Originally the word around town was that HF 19 would make your upvote 4 times more valuable. Well, we definitely shot the moon on that one b/c upvote power increased a whole helluva lot more than that. So my question is, are we slowly on the move down to that original number of 4 times our previous upvote power depending on how much Steem Power we hold, or is our linear monetary upvote directly attached to the price of Steem in relation to how much Steem Power we hold. Inquiring minds would like to know.

In the grand scheme of things, this is small potatoes. We love Steemit and we all know where it's going, but in the short term, I think we'd all like to have a better understanding of why the current author rewards and monetary upvote power are decreasing.

Would love to hear any and all thoughts on this matter. Some re-steems would be great to get this in front of the eyes that could shed some light on this.

Useful Websites for Steemit Newcomers

www.steemd.com
www.Steemnow.com
www.steemdollar.com
www.steemwhales.com

image source