Correct. While the whale gains more capital, their peers do not. That gain is not derived from increasing the value of the underlying investment vehicle, although the ROI of investors derived from increase in value of the underlying investment vehicle is proportionate to the capital invested, stake weighted, in other words.

Investment for capital gains has been the primary incentive for literally untold millenia. Profiteering, of course, has been undertaken as well. However there is an intrinsic difference between the two methods: one builds value into the enterprise which increases the value of the investment vehicle, such as stock or tokens, and the other extracts the value of the production before it can inure to the investment vehicle.

Financially manipulating rewards mechanisms via stake weighting on Steem extracts rewards that would otherwise inure to creators and encourage growth of the platform, which would in turn put upwards price pressure on Steem. This is tantamount to selling the forges and presses of a factory. Both methods produce ROI, but profiteering destroys, while investment builds. Both whales gain capital, but profiteers decrease the rewards of business, decreasing the value of the investment vehicle and preventing gains of capital by their peers, and investors increase those rewards, and all their peers holding stake benefit as well as the investment vehicle grows in value, increasing their capital too.

It's not a mystery to me why we are in this strait.