Sorry for the late reply!

I agree with you, most whales have indeed put lots of time in, and I have no qualms at all with that. They deserve the followings they have. My point with this investigation was rather to see if time affects reputation level, regardless of content.

I also think that if people have followers on another platform and then come to Steemit.. That's fine. Not only are they bringing people to Steemit, they are growing the ecosystem. Sure, they may instantly become a whale if they can manage to bring over a few thousand of their followers, but I'm fine with that. Those people have worked hard.

Yeah! This is exactly my point. New users get turned off, because they can't make anything. They have no chance unless some curation group or whale notices them. And even then, that is usually only for one or two posts.

The richer get richer on Steemit because of the stupid curation system. If you vote on a post that is going to be successful, you gain power? Well guess who's posts will be successful? The whales. So they gain more and more voters, while the rest of users struggle because people wont vote due to the low chance of a minnows post becoming 'successful'.

Thanks a lot for your comment, it was very great to read such a long and detailed comment!