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That's right. To n (straight-line) from n^2 (square root calculation).

Minnows are getting low curation rewards because they have low steem power, low voting power (from voting too much), and vote before the 30 minute mark.

The 25 SP delegation received at registration is enough for a 1 cent upvote every four hours if minnows know to use it wisely. That's 0.002 curation rewards from everything they don't upvote early, regardless of how many votes it received before them.

developers decided to go forward with changing all content rewards to a linear reward curve.

Content Rewards is one concept, Rewards Curation, another. They are not the same. Voting Power is linearly with respect to Steem stake. Curating rewards run under Square Root Calculation as per https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@yabapmatt/curation-reward-estimation-tool

Okay, yes. I stand corrected. I was aware that there was some method that shifts some of the curation reward from later upvoters to early upvoters, but I did not recall the formula. I guess I thought it was more gradual than this.

The 25% is still there, but then it's factored and if there's a lot before it then it can diminish by quite a bit. Much better to be the only voter at 30 minutes (for a sure 25%), with some chance of later votes than to be a minnow voter piling on after the whales arrive.