They could be helpful - I believe many shitcoins are being hustled by whales day by day. With a decent share, you can manipulate the market, which is still decisive when it comes to percieved value of cryptocurrencies. In my point of view, that's one of the reasons Hive struggles climbing up - people dump it rather than trade it. And if you're a whale, you usually take more profit for curating than trading. Not mentioning the power HP gives you over the ecosystem - it is called Hive Power for a reason.