Early adopters on Steemit remember the times in our history when really tremendous creatures swam in our oceans... the whales! And I don't speak about self called "whales" today, I speak about those who had 2 millions and more Steem Power. It was strange period on Steemit. You could have 10 000 Steem Power and give only a cent with your upvote! Then a whale touches you and voila, you have 500$ reward on your post with just one click. But something didn't work as it supposed. The owners of those whale account were often too busy to spend a lot of time on the network. So they gave their responsibility to some curators to upvote people here in their name.

But those curators often did a pretty lousy job!

They didn't check the posts at all, they just upvoted the same people every day. I was one of those who were upvoted every day by @ned, but that wasn't @ned at all! That was his curator, I know who he was, but I don't appreciate that user because of other things that he did from his own profile.

But I appreciate @ned! I mean true @ned, Ned Scott, the CEO and co-founder of Steemit!

I can't wait to see him in life and shake his hand. I am sure that few first upvotes that I got from his account were given me exactly by him and not his curator.
@ned doesn't post much, but he still resteems someone from time to time and share a photo with us so we know that he watches us. When I realized that his curator upvotes my bad and good posts with same percentage, I spoke up against it and decided to reject those upvotes untill @ned, real @ned shows up. I felt ashamed to receive rewards every day while some good bloggers were earning a cent or two. So, I think that I did an honorable thing.

Beside @ned, we had @dan / @dantheman. He was the best, if not the only writer among the whales.

Also co-founder of Steemit and I gained impression that he was the one who dealt with injustice on the network. He was really a man. Maybe too busy, his deeds speak for himself: BitShares, Steem, Eos... he upvoted me only twice but I respect those upvotes because I know that he saw the posts. He resigned on Steemit but still posts something from time to time and I enjoy reading his post! I wish only the best for him!

Now I should mention @blocktrades! I think there are two of them.

And they have pretty fast exchange site, closely connected with Steemit. However, this whale didn't hesitate to give his upvote for things that he found funny and original. A year ago, one his click gave me more than 250$ reward! He did pretty good job on Steemit while rewarding new users and users that don't always speak about Steem and prices. I hope that one day I will get his upvote again.

One of the best for me was definitely @berniesanders! Why? Get a job so you will not complain about Steemit rewards!

I think that we had the most honest whale here, but he was so straight in his honesty that sometimes just sounded raw! And I liked it! Liked the way he dealt with spammers, trolls and those who got unreasonable rewards every day for writing nothing but the same shit every day. He powered down his main account and powered up his other few accounts so, he is still here. If you have a real job, you don't have a real reason to disrespect @berniesanders!

I should mention @abit and @smooth but, honestly, I don't know much about them, except that they flagged those who got big rewards every fucking day and you have to respect that!

Existence of whales on Steemit drained reward pool every day, so when @abit came up with an idea about experiment and whales stopped to upvote! We all felt little bit bad, but few weeks later, we realized that we have more influence on reward pool and that we can give more reward with upvotes to our favorite artists. And whale accounts were locked on 6%. Experiment is over, but I still can't find any old school whale upvoting on Steemit.

Just few words about things that changed - nothing! Same names are always on the trending page. Same people get really nasty rewards on each word they write. And nobody but they should speak up against it in the name of community. Many people still drain reward pool for shitty posts and writings without any proper fable. There are even dudes from my own country that get large rewards every day from the same Steem Powerful guys, they don't speak up against it but they deeply inside that they don't deserve it. And because of that, a better author will get - nothing!

So what would you choose? Money or respect?

Now check my posts from the series Great Steemers to follow:

Check my post about @bleujay - HERE

Check my post about @bullionstackers - HERE

Check my post about @runridefly - HERE

Check my post about @felixxx - HERE

Check my post about @fibra59 - HERE

Check my post about @ace108 - HERE

Check my post about @adelja - HERE

Check my post about @mallorcaman - HERE

Check my post about @moon32walker - HERE

Check Great Steemers to follow SPECIAL: Who to follow for the best STEEMIT/STEEM data and stats

Check Great Steemers to follow SPECIAL: #funny Steemit posts

Check Great Steemers to follow SPECIAL: Fighters for freedom