First of all I would like to congratulate you!
I do understand the frustration we all have especially in this drastic drop in rewards. I suspect that one of the reasons is people with bigger accounts are delegating SP to voting bots. They don’t want to waste their time upvoting good contents or people they follow. They get well paid for their delegations. Just look at the few steemiens and you will notice they don’t have much on their accounts anymore instead you see them delegating almost all of their SP. One way or another something will have to give up. To be honest with you, I have changed my mind when it comes to buying votes. It’s not profitable at all. You actually loose on your investment.
I don’t belive it’s you or your content driving whales away, it’s delegation they prefer.