Maybe you could re-read her post, as she didn't say anything about receiving down votes. As I understand it, a whale liked her post, then when she posted some interesting thoughts about Steemit in a later post, that whale unliked the earlier one.

It is interesting about Steemit. You see a fairly popular post with 25-30 likes which has about $.50 in reward. Then one more like comes along and it suddenly has $10.50. A whale just graced that post with its benevolence. (In her case, that same whale came back and took away the like for something unrelated to the content). I think her criticism is more about the disproportionate and fickle power of whales to give and to take away.

I, myself, haven't yet posted my first blog entry - I've just been watching. It does seem like just another oligarchy.