I'm perplexed that none of these low value make-up nor elementary school level crafts trending posts don't get downvoted to remove at least half of their earnings. They increased exponentially to spam level, because they've become an easy way to game the rewards.

That being said, the Abundance.Tribe and formerly NaturalMedicine are two communities who are responsible for a good amount of retention on Hive. While I understand where Acidyo is coming from I don't agree that this conversation hurts Hive.

On the contrary, free speech requires you accept the speech you disagree with or are even appalled by. The problem is autovoting, which has destroyed interaction, because it took the need to scroll and read content to assess the quality out of the equation.

This splinters the platform and separates everyone further into tribes. Because of this, no one sees what happens outside their own. They stay in these tribes, partly for the interaction, but mostly for rewards. Proof of this was the attempt by acidyo to push others into the more niche communities, yet users keep using his, because they feel there's better discovery for 'THEM' there.

Same with Gems. I've watched users use NaturalMedicine and Abundance.Tribe earning more than they deserve, but end up posting to Gems for the larger votes on lower quality content. I believe this happens, because we are inherently selfish. On top of that, too many are overlooking the real problem; high stakes not curating quality content.

Part of it is fear of retribution. Another part is complacency, because votes are limited. I think cleaning up the trending feed as a whole is a better solution than targeting a minuscule topic range. Allowing the seemingly negative or even damaging topics to live alongside the positive is necessary to show free speech does exist here.

This whole thing that only the positive should shine through is not realistic nor representative of the real world. I think the Abundance.Tribe is guilty of this as well. I forget which pillar it is or the exact words, but requiring nonconfrontational speech is not healthy nor free speech.

My words are my responsibility, but your reaction is yours. I had a problem with this one pillar since day one, but figured I'd see how far you guys considered it as necessary. It turns out it's pretty important to enough of you that have power it became a problem for me and it hinders free speech by putting the blame of another's reaction on the messenger, rather than where the blame truly lies. This is in opposition to common sense, responsibility and Anarchist philosophy itself.

That being said, I hope you stay kenny, because if it isn't about rewards, then the downvotes won't matter and you'll carry on and keep the conversation going. I look forward to your suggestions. I myself think changing how staking works here is the only solution, but it seems most don't want to lose that power they bought in many cases. Power should never be for sale...

P.S.- if it isn't about rewards, you should have never mentioned that you worry about those who use this as their sole income. This isn't supposed to be a welfare system, UBI nor the only way to earn an income. First off that's socialism, which is in opposition to Anarchy. Second it stifles the growth of those receiving it without question. While they may be creating quality content, they aren't earning new skills to get them by when/if these earnings are affected... This was never meant to be nor should be anyone's sole income.