The sky is not falling!

PLEASE DO NOT VOTE ON THIS POST! I know I will get auto-votes, but rewards are going to the Hive fund anyway.

Some people do not seem to realise it, but Hive is a form of anarchy. I see it as something like the old wild west. Out on the frontier there is no real government or police force. People can work together to build something great, but there are risks from bandits and outlaws. They may rely on vigilantes to deal with them. A rich cattle baron may steal your land.

But Hive is better than that in many ways. Anyone can earn here if they have something to offer. You will probably have to work for it as you need to get noticed. Even then you may see a lot of the rewards going to people who have the right connections. There are various cliques. I get automatic votes from various people, so I do okay. That is partly down to being one of the more active users and I have met lots of people at events.

Yesterday I saw this post by @ultravioletmag, who I have met many times. She does great posts of her art, food and health. She had received a hefty downvote from @smooth who has been here since the very beginning. When questioned about this he (I assume) said that he just downvotes some posts that seem over-rewarded and that is was nothing personal. His votes are mostly going on the HBD project at the moment, but he has supported lots of people over the years.

I mostly vote to support the platform, ecosystem, marketing, developers, etc.

We each get to choose how we use our stake. Smooth is a witness, but not in the top twenty. The community gets to decide which witnesses earn.

The rewards on a post are not final until payout and anyone can decide to move them up or down. The post in question still made more than most of use ever make.

I think part of the problem is Haejin. This technical analyst trolled the blockchain for some time with his posts that got hefty self-votes. He was driven away, but still has a hefty vote and is using that to get a nice income from curation. I do not know what logic he uses in choosing what to vote on, but I doubt he reads the posts.

Haejin has mostly powered down, but his power is down to ranchorelaxo. He seems to have control of its whale vote and gets a big delegation. I saw a post a while back claiming to be from the owner of the account who said they have lost the keys! If they cannot power down or remove the relegation then the HP is there forever. The two accounts distort the rewards distribution away from what the actual community may think. All we can do is to counter their votes. The downside of that is that people take downvotes personally and may get upset.

@ultravioletmag did take that one downvote to heart and says she is telling people not to use Hive, despite having done well from it. I have tried to talk her down to little effect. Her rant about it got her more downvotes as some people do not like to see that sort of 'crying'.

@johnvibes chipped in with comments like:

This post is being downvoted by people who contribute zero to the platform and hardly ever post. THis whole thing sucks

Most of those big accounts have done massive work for Hive, but it may not all be visible.

John has made over 26,000 HIVE from his posts, but I must admit I had not heard of him. He has benefited from huge 'rancho' votes on his stories, but gets few comments. I would happily take $77 on a post even it it had lost $40.

Both of these people have been on Hive for years, but still seem to not realise how it works. They have been quite happy to take the rewards anyway. Please note that I am not suggesting anyone downvote them. I personally downvote for abuse and not generally for excessive rewards. I just do not often vote on posts that already have a lot.

The daily reward pool is finite. A post making $100+ reduces what others can make. If $HIVE went much higher then all our rewards would be worth much more, so more people could make $100 on a post. For that to happen we have to keep building despite the issues. Hive will never be perfect, but it has massive potential. I want to see creative people being rewarded and there are plenty who just make cents.

Hive is not 'fair', but neither is life in general. Bankers can make millions whilst nurses struggle to get by. At least with Hive we can have some influence on where the money goes.

I suggest you go and vote on posts that deserve more rewards. It is entirely up to you. You have that freedom.

BTW Some may consider going back to Steem. That is a corrupted platform where your rewards can be taken away. Those who dare to criticise it may be censored. It looks like a few accounts are milking it whilst they can. There is Blurt there there are no downvotes, but it is struggling to grow and is likely to be abused.

Hive five!