That is true, "as far as you could tell." However, under the current rules of the blockchain, who or what could stop @fyrstikken if he did decide that he wanted to upstroke himself 10x's every day, just like @haejin does??? Or, how do you know that they are not both one-and-the-same person, since everyone can create multiple accounts and there is no way to ensure a persons' identity and that each person only has one account?
Multiple accounts is a HUGE red flag to me, and it allows people to "game the system" that SteemIt has put into place. It provides an environment which makes it easy for people to hide their activities and hide behind false identities. Why would people want to have fake identities? Is it because they don't want other people to know what they are really doing?
Answer: only a group of other whales could stop this from happening. So, why did the whales allow @haejin to make $200K off of SteemIt, and are only now getting around to addressing this apparent "problem?" Why do such a small group of people seem to have all of the "power" in this supposedly "fair" system??? Is SteemIt truly "decentralized" or does all of the power go hand-in-hand with a minority of super-rich technocrats ??? Is this a system of governance which is preferable to the systems which we already have in place? Or, is this just a case of, "different boss, same rules?"
Has SteemIt really been able to address its' own fundamental questions? Or, is it a failed experiment? Can it still be salvaged by some tweaks to the blockchain? If so, why haven't these tweaks been made yet? Do the Witnesses really want to make SteemIt a fair place, with fair rules? Or, do they want to make it appear to be fair, so they can keep on gaming the system they have put in place - and beat down anyone who threatens to usurp the power they already have???
All I can say is, you better start voting. Not just upvotes and downvotes, but also for Witnesses.
And the serious whales have reasons to not play the "golden parachute" like @haejin.
My witness votes have been in place, and have been "adjusted," since... about June, 2017 - just as soon as I joined SteemIt and educated myself about voting for witnesses. The only question is, does my voting have any effect? I honestly don't know that it does, one way of the other.
Why have these "serious whales" allowed @haejin to exercise this, "golden parachute" option - for the last few months? If they were so "serious," wouldn't they have stopped @haejin somewhere around $20K, instead of $200K ??? Or, could they have been 10 times more "serious" about exercising their resposibility to keep SteemIt a fair place?
Is there anything put into place to address the next "rape of the rewards pool" which is almost certainly in planning or has already launched? Or, are there already thousands of similar situations already going on, which nothing is being done to correct? Or, is @haejin just the most glaring example of somebody who has successfully "out-gamed" the whales who are already gaming us?
If self-promotion is "against the rules," why don't the Witnesses change this situation for everyone, ensure a "one person, one account" system, and clean things up? Or, did Dan Larimer leave the SteemIt platform because there are "unfixable" problems that are already hard-coded into the SteemIt blockchain, and he's going to try and do a better job with EOS and SteemIt 2.0?
Currently, Witness vote weight is all about SP. I do recall @ned mentioning about changing it. You can see the overall layout here.
http://www.steemreports.com/witness-voters/
The report gets rid of the proxies I believe, so it's basically how the SPs weight all distributed among the top Witnesses. The website also has sections for the lower 50s, etc.
Also note that I believe a significant of Steemians DO NOT vote.
I can see that I still have a lot to learn, and my questions are many. The only real pathway for me seems to be, "Keep Swimming, and Be Careful."
And really, most of your other questions can be found by visiting @paulag's blog for her stats. In short, there are upcoming @haejin's and many tiny circlejerk rings.
I get daily messages from Steem.chat about vote for vote.
As for @dan, the history is carved into the blockchain, you can read about why he left.
As for why did whales, et al wait? Again, Witness voting distribution should have answered most of that question.
It's very possible that it's a group of whales that funded rancho and haejin in the first place, in order to create a fall guy that cashes out mercilessly and with maximum efficiency, so that they can make money without any apparent ties to the scheme. And as long as some people at some times appear to be doing something about "individuals" like him engaging in such behavior then less attention is given to the witnesses who could actually change the whole system at the code-level to be less profit-driven. The same witnesses who are backed by some of the same whales who are doing this in the first place.
Exactly my thoughts. I have no idea if they're accurate, but it would not surprise me - in the least - if something very close to this is actually what @ranchorelaxo and some other whales all had in mind to begin with.