I agree that many of the dolphins and whales do only support certain members. The "love" needs to be spread out more.... but I think it will in time. This is still a very new platform in both social media and cryptocurrency. I think it does need time to mature and "get the wrinkles out." I think it has gotten better but still needs improvement in this aspect. I don't like seeing the same type of posts by the same people over and over on the trending page, that to me doesn't make sense.
The argument has been that "this person" works hard on their posts, "look at all the pictures and all the writing too!" But it is of the same person doing the same thing over and over with just a change of venue. I get it, some people like that and it does work, but constantly trending?
The other issue I see is that many of us perpetuate this vicious cycle of maintaining these said posts on the top of the trending page. We see this person post this "same old article" but give it a higher percentage Up Vote, well because they get paid well on their post so my curation vote will get paid more too. Then on the next post by "joe schmoe" and we will up vote it at 5% percent because " well, even though it was well written with many unique points and pictures he doesn't get paid much so my vote won't either." This mentality has led me to vote in this manner. I try to no longer do this "as much." Honestly, I still do it although not as much. I do try to spread my vote out to those that don't get paid as much and lower my voting percentage on those that already do well. I see others that still up vote the trending posts at higher voting percentage and then lower it for the regular users. Not fair. Not really, it is what it is But if we consider ourselves each individual shareholders to this endeavor, then it is a self harming attitude and action in the end. So I think eventually people will catch on and realize that it is better if we support newer members that we here on steemit call the MINNOWS.