The contest prizes have been the same since almost day one, when we started in 2017.

Back then we started with no stake and are now almost hitting 65k.
The votes were also silently raised, depending on the available VP. It has been fluctuating between 80 and 85% for quite some time.
Also, all the rewards we are getting are being 100% powered up, so those votes/prizes continue to rise.
Besides that we also drop the best posts for curation in the projects we cooperate with.
These high rewards on our posts are a new thing actually.
We've been years and years getting close to nothing and doing it for the sake of black and white photography and to motivate all the users/members that we find worthy.
Me (@brumest) and @ewkaw are the only curators in this community and chose not to take any rewards for ourselves, as we are already being rewarded by the curation projects.