Unfortunately, HF19 has brough out the more selfish side of many steemians and you could feel this all around the platform. It's not harder for minnows and newbies to get votes because people are using their more concentrated votes on things they have a higher incentive for.
On top of this, people have started upvoting their own stuff, especially their own comments since that way, they guarantee themselves at least some income from their Steem Power.
I have seen one member upvote each of his comments giving himself €15 for each one, that's just greedy, I prefer to share :)
When the wrong incentive is there, there will always be people to take advantage. But we should try to battle that as much as we can with our own behaviors and reactions.
Thank you :)