Nobody is saying you should become a whale by investing thousands of dollars, even that 1 cent per vote can make a lot of difference... I know it from experience being at both sides already, the one getting it and the one giving it.

It doesn't matter what the whales did and when they did it, there are also investors that got in later and have invested serious amount of money into the project as well. This is a long term investment on their side, so they should be also thinking about investing in the people that help steemit develop and evolve. That is why my idea here is trying to promote - investing not only in the platform, but also in the people that will help it develop and continue to grow and that goes not only for good content creators that get votes, but for curators as well.