Are whales an asset or a liability to the steemit platform?

Hi there girls and guys,

Yep, here's your contrarian post for the day...

So. Whales...

You either love them or you hate them. You piss them off (like me) or suck up to them like a good little boy / girl.

Whatever you do, you don't ignore them.

They can make your day or break your day. And strong upvote can set you up for a viral post. A strong downvote can loose you your hard earned rewards, screw up your reputation and hide your posts.

So I seem a bit biased, and I am - I have a personal vendetta with a few whales out there, as I crawl back out for another round of getting roasted!

BUT, I want to get a discussion going as to why having individual accounts with such high Steem Power with the current steemit dynamics is either a good thing or a bad thing...

So, I'll put down a few of my thoughts, but let me know what you guys think about the topic in the comments below!!

WHALE PROS

A lot of whales have simply bought their way to whale-dom... Why's this good? This is a key source of demand for the Steem currency. That's why we make any money at all on steemit!
(I'm struggling a bit with the pros, so let me know in the comments more benefits of having whales in the comments)

WHALE CONS

Whales get a good "ass licking" from most of steemits active members. They hold so much power at the tip of their upvote button, that it creates a real "sucking up" culture. Trust me when I say that it's pretty cringe worthy for "normal people" looking in from the outside.

Sucking up is one thing. The real shocker is the lack of "real life" comments... Go to any whale's post and find the aggressively opposing comments or even offensive comments... Yeah, they don't exist. a) because the ones that were posted probably got downvoted and are now invisible, and b) because people have been burnt in the past by downvotes, that an environment of tyranny has been created where people are so scared of getting in a grossly unfair fight with a whale.

Whales tend to be the downvoters. Many whales try to improve the environment (because they know it will make them more money in the long run), but it's funny that I've only ever been downvoted by a whale and not a normal steemian... which segue us onto the next point...

Whales really are dictating where steemit is going. they can easily boost or hide content. I think I'd be cool with that concept if it wasn't for the fact that the only thing that makes a whale a whale is the fact that they slapped down tens of thousands of dollars to get that status.

Here's a perfect example of one of my previous posts that 26 people upvoted and generated some really healthy discussion on the future of steemit...

No comment. No nothing. Just a big fat downvote from a big fat whale. Apparently that topic is now closed for other steemians to indulge in. I'm a big advocate for freedom of speech and this is the most worrying thing about whales in my opinion...

Ok, so there are my 4 reasons for why I think whales are a bad thing for steemit and my one reason why I think they're good.

What do you guys think?

Quick disclaimer - I'm reposting this to get good discussion going.