A few days ago I tuned in to the hive town hall that was hosted on X spaces, and one of the major points of the discussion was about the removal of the hive reward pool. This was but a suggestion I had heard a while ago in another space, and honestly it sounded like one of those outlandish ideas. But then seeing it being discussed again made me realize that maybe it is a bit more than some outlandish idea and some people are actually quite onboard with the idea. There were a few back and forth, some interesting contributions for alternatives, but what I gathered was that the majority are against the idea (which I find relieving) and only a few are in support.
It is quite clear my own stance on the whole situation. I feel it is a terrible idea and yes of course a part of that is because the majority of my assets on the chain are earned from the reward pool. But then, that is why I joined the hive blockchain. That is what was marketed to me. Proof of brain, engage, interact and if you're lucky you'll earn a couple bucks. I have been lucky enough and consistent enough. Made lots of friends and now I enjoy coming here everyday. For most it may not be the same experience, for some it may be a worse or even a better experience. Hive is a very interesting chain.
One of the major arguments from those who were pro the removal of the reward pool was that nowadays we no longer get quality curation and its majorly just autovotes, or in house curation, which has led to some undeserving posts getting rewarded. And this was actually a valid point which I agree with, but I don't think removing the reward pool would be a sensible way to rectify the situation. That is sort of like a "Throwing the baby out with the bath water" type of solution.
Without the reward pool hive would probably look like all these other dead chains where everyone is just a trader and opportunist looking to make their bags. I know some don't really give a shit about community and are just after making profits, but whether they like it or not community is a big part of the reason hive is still standing strong. If everyone was just an investor during the hostile takeover on the legacy chain, people would have just left and that'd be it. But the desire to continue was what birthed hive and communities have done nothing but grow together ever since.
Why take away what is not broken? The reward pool while it may not entirely be fairly distributed according to contribution is still doing a reasonably good job. Sure you can say we need improvement, but improvement is not getting rid of the system entirely. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Hive is actually the only web3 social platform that is running proofofbrain relatively efficiently.
Let us say push comes to shove and we eventually have to get rid of the reward pool, what exactly will a better model look like? In all honesty none of the alternatives that were provided on the town hall space seemed to be really better than the reward pool, Or atleast one that can work as well as the reward pool. just seems like they were eager for a change of some sort. Anyways, if a better method was to be devised it would have to be one that would reward the investors, and also be reasonable enough to be rewarding to new people as well.
At this point in time, the reward pool removal is purely a speculation and I am glad it is and hope it never happens.
Cover image is AI art generated by me using Nightcafe
