I just had my eight anniversary on July 5th. What a ride those past eight years have been! The platform has evolved a lot since the beginning, in good ways and bad. I was lucky enough to be around for that first really lucrative year (2016) and it completely changed my life. I was able to quit my job, write full time, travel, pay off debts. It was a dream come true.

My posts earn very little now, I'm lucky to break $10 (author portion) on most of my posts. I'm not complaining. Even still, this is more than I'm making on any other social media platform, by far. I've stayed here on Hive because I value the people I've met over the years. This is no exaggeration, if I miss more than a few days of interaction I miss it. I try to consistently post high quality content because it's good practice and it's made me a much better writer.

I, personally, think what people do with the proceeds of their posts is their business. So many of us early content creators cashed out huge amounts in the early days and if we were demonized and punished for doing that there would be none of us left here today. I've always believed that people who add real value to the Hive community should be compensated in direct proportion to the value they add. How do we define value? I think each individual has a slightly different definition of value but if each person made it a point to reward the accounts that entertain them and make them think I think it would collectively increase the overall content quality overtime. I think this is the responsibility of each of us who care about Hive to make sure that happens. Sometimes value is added not only from content but from genuine engagement as well. I enjoy interacting with people who I know have really read my content.

On the flip side, there have always been those scammy accounts who are just trying to game the system. These are the ones who damage the Hive community the most, IMHO. Crypto has a bad enough reputation in the eyes of the mainstream as it is but these scammy accounts are only reinforcing those stereotypes and they discourage those who are making an honest effort. About 25% of the comments I received on my posts are from people I can tell haven't even read my posts. This is partially my fault because, early on, I started upvoting comments but from here on out I think I'm going to not do that anymore if I can tell someone hasn't even read what I wrote.

I guess my point is on a decentralized platform without a higher authority directing the evolution, it's up to each of us to enhance and maintain and protect the integrity of this platform. We can do this with our posts but we also do it with each vote and each comment. I really enjoyed this post and I think it's an important conversation not only to have but to keep going!