If you've been watching the trending page you know that this has been a problem among the whales since the beginning. The hardfork just gave the same ability, to a lesser degree, to more of us. If the ability to upvote the self is revoked we will simply fall into a pattern of the powerful agreeing to upvote each other, which will end much the same. I even wrote a parable about it 8 months ago.

https://steemit.com/steemit/@lifeworship/the-purgatory-option-a-parable-of-steem

One of the problems that I see is that those with money seem to think that their money is worth more than the time investment that the rest of us make. Frankly, I'm tired of working on a post for hours, using knowledge that I've gained over decades, and watching it sink into the past with a payout of $0.00.

Before the hardfork I was noticing that the more followers I gained, the fewer votes I garnered. It's good to finally be able to at least reward myself for what I've been investing for almost a year. If someone had come to me 10 months ago, and showed me my current balance, I'd have run away from Steemit and never looked back.

I hope my work has helped my dedicated core of followers in some way. I sometimes think I'm preaching to the choir, but I am now more impoverished than when I started, and without some respite from the payout failures, I cannot continue to contribute.