My message at one time would've been "if you don't like being at the mercy of employees at YouTube, join Steemit!" But now you're just swapping being at the mercy of YouTube employees, with being at the mercy of individual whales who subjectively decide that your content isn't worthy or is "over-rewarded".

Again, there is a huge, huge difference. YouTube can unilaterally not only shut down your earnings, but remove your channel and all of your content. On Steem, not only can't you be removed, you can always market and appeal to other stakeholders for upvotes which offset or exceeed the downvotes. This is entirely different from YouTube's absolute and arbitrary authority where you have no recourse at all.

As for "whales", how much of your earnings/upvotes are coming from whales? Please don't selectively blame "whales" for downvotes but silently enjoy the whale upvotes. If you don't like whales having influence over rewards, and would prefer to live or die on the basis of grass roots support, please ask your whale upvoters to stop too.