I like the idea of combining tips into the post rewards on the UI. It would make it much clearer that there's real economic activity taking place.
On the paywall thing; I'm curious why you think a basic universal implementation wouldn't work? Couldn't we just encrypt content with memo keys and gate access to the decryption based on payment/subscription status? Seems like that would cover the core use case of "pay to unlock this content" without needing a ton of customization.
Maybe I'm oversimplifying or misunderstanding it, but even a basic "this post is locked, pay X HIVE to decrypt" feature would be huge.
Although I guess frontends could implement something like that using already existing features. But having it at the chain level might be better, since it would work universally across all frontends.
RE: Downvotes Aren't Stealing Your Income - And Why That Matters