I probably should have been more clear in my post, but I'm being a little broad with my definition of minnow. The instances of "selfishness" that I noticed were from minnows whose votes are not worth a few dollars, these are people who would definitely be able to scale their votes, they're simply choosing not to vote on the content of others.

For those who can't scale their votes, I understand this behaviour a little bit more. But I think they should learn that the community will be more likely to reward them in the long run if they reward others. No one looks fondly upon the greedy and selfish ;)