Thoughts on Voting

I've been gone a long time. Some things have changed. Some things not so much.

Just today PeakD launched a new micro-blogging feature. It's not the first. There are others.

When I left though, people were arguing about short form content. A lot of people on Hive were practically up in arms over what content should be here or be rewarded.

The thing is, people's votes are their own to do with as they please.

It's like complaining that the person down the street keeps buying garden gnomes, or your neighbor bought a new car when they should be saving money. It's their money and they can do with it as they please. Even if they put it into a delegation for a trail that upvotes what you view as a shit post.

Hate to break it to you, but a lot of social media is shit posts. We rant and we rave and we talk about absolute garbage. Hell, more than half the shit on TV, fiction or not, is pretty garbage.

So then you get to the question of upvotes and content on Hive and people often seem to want to demand a ridiculously high quality standard. But the thing is, not everyone want to read all that all the time.

Sometimes I'm flabbergast at the things people actually see value in and want to reward. But it's their vote. That's the system "we" created here.

People seem to have accepted that in some ways. But they also seem to be making some of the same arguments they were years ago about quality content and who deserves upvotes.

Things have also changed in many ways though. There was more of a fervor back then. People were excited. There were bid bots upvoting content. People paying to try to get paid. Now it seems things are a bit more honest but quiet.

Sure, a lot of content isn't necessarily worth $20 or $40 or $60 or $120 or whatever. Like micro-blogging content. Or memes. Well, maybe some memes are worth a few bucks or $20 or whatever. Maybe a simple post with a nice photo you took is worth $60 or even $120. Who's to say?

And you know what, who's to say you shouldn't be able to downvote someone's shit content you think is overvalued with your stake.

I was one of the few willing to do so back in the day and got far higher retaliatory downvotes back. Now that's some bullshit. But I still did it. Because it's my stake and I'll downvote what I damn well please if I think something is overvalued or shouldn't be rewarded.

Not everything has to be the highest of quality or the best of content though. There are many reasons to upvote things. Like rewarding regular posters that you enjoy, to encourage them to regularly post. Like a subscription service, but with your hive power. Or to encourage posting or comments or simply using the Hive Blockchain.

Isn't keeping someone here and posting and commenting worth a few bucks? Especially if they're trying to power up and bring value to the chain?

There were definitely quite a few people making some shit content getting highly rewarded through questionable means back in the day. But were people creating legitimate content that were get getting paid a bit well for it really deserving of all the hate? I dunno. Depends entirely on the case.

But do we want a place here that rewards people for being here and posting? Do we only want "quality content" that is boring as hell? Or do we want a fun place to go every day that rewards people for being here and investing their time and money into creating a place people can enjoy?

Edit: Also, the extreme limitation on votes and micro-blogging aren't exactly compatible.