On the topic of whales, I used to be a large dolphin (had around 40,000+ Steem at one point) but the problem is, I had to pay the cost of living and over time sold what I had. The good thing about it is I earned the Steem using the platform myself and in my opinion a truly functioning economy would have content producers earning their way into these higher ranks or whale status. That situation is almost impossible right now which means no matter how good a new content producer is or how good the content becomes they will likely never move up in status.

Psychologically that is the main problem I think from the content producer side. Imagine a game or a job where no matter how much productivity or how hard you work at it or how long, you will never move up? We know usually when people discover that this is the case they simply move on to something else because it's not fun anymore. The psychological aspect in my opinion is undervalued, it's not just about money here, as people will take jobs for less or little pay if they can gain prestige and social rank from those positions. The problem with Steem is there is no social rank to gain, no prestige, and no money (at least not enough to pay for living expenses anymore).