This post is a continuation to Yesterday's post For those who are confused over the payouts on Hive.
When you create an account on Hive, you will have very little power to either create content, be it comments or posts, or even vote. On low HP accounts, the RC will dry out pretty quickly, so you might have to ask someone for a delegation to get you started.
A new account
At the start, even the vote value for a low HP account is 0, so for most of us, the next thing is to try to collect, and grow that power. This is where the eventual cost lies. Either you use your money to invest (that is use your already existing work to pay for it), or you work by producing content to improve your worth.
This is how you pay for any actions you will be doing in the future on Hive.
So if you see voting this way, you'll start seeing that it is not completely free. We are constantly doing the work to pay for the vote, even if it is seemingly free to push that button.
Now, if you appreciate your own work of producing knowledge, art or entertainment, would you give those hard-earned rewards away for free?
Would you pay for the work from your own pocket? Yes, the vote might be "free", but consider the implication. You are actually validating what the other person is doing. You are saying "This is Okay, I approve, please continue doing it".
If there was no effort behind that post, you might be rewarding someone who doesn't deserve and earn it.
Now turn the scales over and evaluate your own worth. If you are willing to vote (=pay) for someones non-work, you will in-fact be devaluing your own work.
Rephrased:
Do you appreciate what you have personally accomplished enough, to appreciate others' efforts similarly. Would you indeed pay others the same you are getting from your own work.
And if you flip that question around, do you appreciate your own worth enough to understand that whenever someones content gets hugely over-voted without actually going the extra mile, it will diminish the worth of your own.
So, what I am trying to say is, the vote is actually not free. It only seems like it is, but in reality, you have already paid for that vote. And if you give it out for free, it will become worthless, and it can have negative effect on the worth of your own accomplishments.
Writing this post has forced me to re-think about my position on curation trails and autovotes. I am not completely against them, but – while I personally already appreciate organic voting immensely more than autovotes – I think now that organic votes are even more important than I originally thought they were.
