As a relative newcomer to Hive, this thread is somewhat disheartening. I saw HIVE as viable alternative to existing social media as well as a way to counteract the censorship which takes place on other platforms.
The concept of value creation is not new to me. As an entrepreneur, I have spent most of my career building value both for myself as well as everyone in the networks that I have built or been involved with. Unfortunately over the last few months I have noticed that the Hive community appears to be falling into many of the same traps that have plagued mainstream social media platforms. "Policing" instead of being conducted by outright censorship is conducted by downvoting. "Remove the ability to earn value and you will silence the voice," seems to be the method being deployed.
When I joined the community in June or so this year, my impression was that the community was "kind and supportive." I saw it as a vehicle to "tell my story" and both add and be rewarded with value. I was told by the friend who introduced me to Hive that the Hive Blockchain was hardforked after an attempt was made to control Steem. It sounded good. I created a couple of posts in the summer which I enjoyed creating and feedback was encouraging.
Subsequently, "life happened" and it was a couple of months before I returned to Hive. Whilst at the moment I don't have time to create content, I felt that I needed to re-connect and possibly find some Hivers to share some of my stored value with. Unfortunately, my experience has been that there has been a decline in the quality of original content or rather... There has been an increase in the amount of poor quality content in some of the communities to which I belong. This has meant that good quality content is somewhat hidden. Instead of just leaving the platform, I thought that it would be a good idea to look for some of the content creators that I know and use Hive to reward them. The Last American Vagabond is just one such content creator. To see how this channel has been downvoted may just be the final nail in the Hive coffin for me. To see how "re-enforcements" were called in to essentially wipe out any value that was given to Ryan - that's his name - is reminiscent of the chants to "burn the witch" at the Salem witch trials.
Have the downvoters in question considered the fact that this particular Hiver (and others like him) may in fact be the very reason that many have come to Hive? For me, Hive is the ideal way to support members of the alternative media. Do you have any idea of the reach of many of these independent journalists? Before The Last American Vagabond was de-platformed by YouTube, his reach was routinely in the hundreds of thousands.
I would kindly suggest that before embarking on a campaign to "punish" a Hiver like The last American Vagabond for "only posting an external link" that downvoters consider all of the facts and ramifications of doing this. There is a real danger that HIVE will just become another social media platform with crypto on the side. We need to be better than the platforms and spaces that we left to come here.