Hard Fork 19 is coming - What does that mean for You, Steem, and people like me (the average minnow)

With Steem's Hard Fork 19 quickly approaching, I decided to do a little research to see what it was all about. I wanted to find out what changes and updates were coming and what I should be prepared for. I have to admit a lot of the information was over my head, but from what I could understand, it sounds like we are in for updates that are long overdue.

Thanks to @craig-grant and @timcliff and a slew of other authors that helped explain the upcoming update in a way that could be easier understood by us less knowledgeable community members.

Please check out their posts if you haven't gotten the chance:
STEEM blockchain hardfork 19, on June 20, 2017 - by @craig-grant
Potential Payout Changes with HF 19 Launch - by @timcliff

The key updates that stood out to me are the introduction of the linear reward curve and the increase in the vote impact for users. What these changes will generally do is increase the influence of small guys like myself.

How will these changes impact the way we vote and rewards for posts such as mine?

In the short term, your potential payout for existing posts that are pending payout may increase or decrease, which could be an advantage for those who have upvotes on their posts from several less influential voters. Your potential payout could possibly decrease if a majority of your voters have a huge amount of voting power.

A majority of the people following me are minnows like myself and a majority of the posts i make are supported and upvoted by these minnows. What that means is that we as small time authors have the potential to earn more per post due to the "balancing" and increase in our voting power. As a curator, my $.08 vote will now be worth 4x as much on posts I support and upvote. To many, that isn't much, but to some like myself it means a great deal since it allows people like me to influence a greater number of posts that may get missed by bots and other curators who are either part of trails or only follow specific people.

In other words, it casts a wider net for the distribution of voting power among the members of the Steemit community and makes everyone's vote just as important as the other, not that your vote, no matter how small, wasn't important in the first place.

This update will also force a change in the habits of how people vote and how frequently they vote. It will encourage people to be more selective of the content they choose to upvote as well as the weight of the vote they make. This can be both good or bad, but overall I think all changes together will be a positive change for the entire community.

Im excited where this update will take us and will forever be a supporter of Steemit!

Steem On!

Please let me know what you think in the comments below