I think you're looking at this in the wrong way. The whales make hardly anything from posting, it's all in the curation rewards.
They will especially upvote anything that has the potential to bring in new users to Steemit as this is the strategy that benefits the size of the market cap the most.
Boycotting the whales will do nothing.
They are in actual fact redistributing the wealth hugely and building up a base of dolphins that will continue to do this.
I have a few articles on the subject if you're interested.
The whales flagged my post with so much power that it completely removed the sample of the article on the main post and the picture. Whales curate this place to their own tune, and I believe its time for some massive changes. If you want Steem to increase in value, you wont dismiss my logic. Thanks for your thought. My article now has another 45 upvotes in less than 10 minutes, and if whales refuse to upvote - that shows a major discrepancy in opinion between the Powerful and the Poor.
Its classic. However, I appreciate your thoughtful response and vote. Thank you.
I agree with your logic, reading your post I'm not sure who you think the whales are? Your downvotes weren't really from anyone with any significant power.
The reason why her post did so well was that she was willing to go out there, thinking outside the box and make some kind of spectacular statement to grow Steemit. Is it worth that amount of money? Probably not, but seeing those kinds of payouts will incentivize people to do the same. It's almost an advert for posting about promoting Steemit.
We'll see people step up their game in that field. Its all about the first mover advantage here. :)