In reality, every cent I've made on here from paying in NOTHING is a BONUS!

I've never been paid anything to write what ever I feel like. I am NOT ENTITLED to free money, merely appreciate it.

First things first, THEY'RE NOT TAKING YOUR MONEY!! I get that you see the potential payouts going down, but it's just that...potential. Do you throw the same emotional fit when it drops down due to votes being diluted and the price of steem going down? While perhaps confusing, I highly doubt this makes you flip out. Now while I understand the bad feelings that come from seeing your payout go up, which is by an even higher amount than usual by the whales that are voting right now, the overall rewards pool isn't changing. What is happening is that the rewards are being spread around to more people, being decided by more people...each having a greater impact in the decision of who gets what.

I get it, I really do, my own posts have felt the effect of this, but in the end...I didn't invest money from my pocket here (like many content creators.) Rather than screaming about how fair/unfair something is, my time (which is my true investment) is better served looking at what I want to do about it. Remember that the whales who are not voting are forfeiting their curation rewards, which is the only way they really earn on here right now (short of steem price going up) since most if not all of them don't post (typically declining rewards when they do.)

[NOTE: I'm not on a specific side of this issue, merely in the camp of let's see what happens. There are pro's and con's to this, which I'll touch on below.]

My Quick Take on the No-Whale Voting Experiment

Many people have already written about this at length both for and against. So feel free to skip down to the strategy section.

What is the Experiment and Why

This idea had been thrown around by many in the community (especially minnows) many months back. The idea is that if the whales stop voting, minnows and dolphins (small and mid Steem Power holders) would have a greater influence on how the daily reward pool is distributed to authors and commentors through voting. With the current voting formula in place (n^2) the whale votes had a disproportional effect, which while quite nice when you get the $20 upvote from a single person, this concentrated rewards.

EVERYTHING that is done by a whale gets griped about by somebody. If they vote, they get yelled at for voting and not 'spreading the wealth around' and if they don't vote they get yelled at for not rewarding people (especially those who have gotten used to that level of rewards.) This isn't meant to be knocking anybody, but it's important to try and have some perspective on this aspect.

Pro's

Smaller and Midsize users votes are now carrying A LOT more weight, meaning they give more money to a post or comment. For quite a while now most people didn't seen the payout increment even a penny when it was sitting below $1. There have been tons of calls for the larger portion of the community to be able to play a larger roll in distributing rewards and right now we have that opportunity
Curation rewards have vastly increased proportionally. Personally I've seen my triple of more in most cases and I don't even work on generating them, preferring to just vote on what I want. For those of you who have built up some Steem Power this is your opportunity to see some greater returns on this, especially if you are focusing to maximize these returns (like searching out low-paying, 30ish minute old posts that you can foresee getting voted on by a bunch of other smaller/midsize users...since the whales aren't voting.)
There is a (potentially) greater ability to produce content in more unique areas and tags that have had readers/engagement, but not a focus by the few (50) whales. Having the concentrated rewards by whale voting tended to drive people to post in the areas that we being curated frequently by these few users. With the larger population now having more of a say, you can get some payout (say $1-$2 dollars compared to next to nothing.)

Con's

The lack of communication on this experiment has caused a lot of issues with community members either due to the drop in their 'normal' rewards or the impact of seeing their posts flagged and payouts drop (after being excited.) I'm happy to see some messages (even if automated) being left on posts that are receiving flags to at least attempt to provide some information on what's going on. However, some notice ahead of time would have been extremely useful both to inform the community as a whole that this was going to occur and allow them some ability to choose ahead of time what they want to do about it themselves (i.e. not post certain things until it's over.)
Not having all of the whales on board with this, nor seemingly Steemit Inc (since I've seen @dantheman voting) has required the flagging to occur to allow for an 'accurate' idea of the effect, at least pertaining to voting patterns and payouts. I do understand that there is rarely if ever unanimous decisions made, and users here are in reality allowed to do whatever they want short of abuse. However, in this particular case, not having every whale user on board is has caused WAY MORE posts to be flagged in the name of the experiment.
It's very difficult to devote enough time to keep up with all of the whale votes that are going out to effectively flag them all or adapt flag weights as new whale votes are applied. Even though I personally feel that the experiment is doing it's best to apply these 'rule conditions' evenly across the board, simply due to the understandable time lag between new whale vote being applied and the countering flag, causes many to view things as not being applied consistently.

<Possible Strategies to Apply for Better Payouts without Whale Votes

[These are just my thoughts to approach it and no guarantees can be given for every user.]

With the whales not voting or having their votes being countered, we can no longer try to garner support from single (or few) sources as we have been able. The posts that are atop the trending pages (commonly) are held by those with large number of votes by small to midsize users. While yes, the dolphins are the 'new whales' proportionally, with the voting formula in use (n^2) the gap between a minnow and a dolphin is muuuch smaller than that of a dolphin and a whale. Even though we have a new (and larger) set of 'high impact' voters, proportionally they don't have the as large of an impact in comparison to the whales.

So here are my ideas on how to approach this.

More than Ever the Name of the Game is ENGAGEMENT!

Now more than ever engaging with more and new people is crucial. The more people you are able to interact with and get on their radar, the higher the likelihood you can receive a vote from them. Now this doesn't mean spam your post in their comment section, this means engaging in conversation with them. Give them a reason to want to know more about you and your work without even having to ask. While never perfect, this greatly increases the chance they will look at your blog and hence most recent posts.
Become an active participant in @steemtrails. Even though they are being viewed as a 'whale' they are still voting (even with reduced power and/or less often) there are TONS of individuals that are a part of this that you can gain access to. There are dozens and dozens of various topic trails going on from gardening, to gaming, to fiction, and more. Find the ones that fit with your interest and passions and go interact with those people. Build friendships, possibly even be a part of curating these tags.
Use steemit.chat and discord channels like Steemspeak, VOTU, SteemTrail, SteemitTalk Podcast or others to interact, promote your posts and just get to know more people. Heck, if you find you don't like any of these places, make your own and draw in the people you're looking for...it's free!
If you don't want to really do any of these or are so bothered by what is going on, just take a break from posting for a while. There is nothing forcing us to do anything here...it's OUR CHOICE. If it's not fun, satisfying, etc there is probably a better way to be spending your time. With this being labeled as an 'experiment' I think it's fair to accept that this will end after a period of time (I haven't heard specific on this myself.) Come back or increase your activity when you feel the time is right.

Final Thoughts

I really do understand the frustrations many people are having with this, even those who are for the experiment that is going on. There are plenty of constructive ways to state your dislike and why to add into the conversation. The whales and steemit inc really do hear these things, even though not everything can be done. There are always going to be some unhappy with a decision they make. But in the end, I do prefer seeing something be done over nothing. Even if those something could have been done in a better way and ideally any futures 'experiments' can learn from this experience.

The end goal for everybody that is on here is to be benefiting in some way whether it's from community interaction, learning, practicing skills, making a little money, having a relatively uncensored outlet (compared to many other social media sites) or anything else you can think of. If you find you're not getting any benefit, it's time to reassess what you can do about instead of just repeating the same thing.

Remember the Definition of Insanity: Doing the same thing expecting a different result. Be proactive in your decisions and actions.