These are some great points that I've often thought to myself. I remember when I was younger and was grinding my way to more bitcoin, similar to when I first got on this chain. I was commenting, following and curating people for the first couple years with no stake of my own but slowly and surely started gaining trust, a reputation and history and people started trailing my votes making them worth more. Then delegations arrived and I was lucky enough for my work to be rewarded with them so I could curate more effectively and be rewarded better, but it was quite an investment of time and effort that could've also not worked out.

I didn't quit there and I kept building things but I also realize I'm now at this age where doing that whole grind again I wouldn't be able to, but if I were to land on Hive again 10 years younger today I would definitely spend most of my waking hour contributing to where I think my contributions are needed. Especially if I need the money and freedom that comes with it and time after time Hive has shown that those exceptional users get rewarded for their contributions more than your regular joes who may just post and comment a bit here and there.

So this begs the question why we aren't seeing more of these users, the history of our chain and battletestedness surely shows that it's not going anywhere. Market history shows that if you held for a certain amount of time you could've taking some good profit here and there, yet many don't even bother.

An internet connection and a device is all you need, it's crazy to me that we don't see more "tryhards" trying harder to build their activity and reputation here up from places where they really could use the earnings to improve their and their immediate families lives.