It seems the whales have limited their own voting power, or the hardfork did indeed redistribute the wealth. Either way it looks to me like there is precious little reward, even at the top of the deck and that means spam will increase, third world writers will thrive (they can live well on a few dollars a day, no offense to them) and steemit will begin to look like the rest of the interwebs. I hope that's not true. The idea of an egalitarian site where merit is rewarded is exciting.