Beyond the obvious about what people might actually think is worth paying for, content quality and post effort matter. When it comes to the other social medias where the vast majority of accounts are not monetized and the monetized are selected by the platform itself, content quality doesn't really matter - people can post what they want about their day for a few likes from their friends and family and think nothing of it. Hive is different and it isn't only because all accounts are potentially monetized and draw on the same pool, making it a competitive environment.
This is of course part of the reason too though - where the draw on the pool through staked voting means people are invested in the direction of that stake and feel that their decisions matter. This is directed to and from content through up and down votes and the idea is that the wisdom of the crowd will promote the best and reduce the rest in terms of content value. The problem with this is of course that there is always going to be contention as to what is valuable to the ecosystem and the size of stake of some users of others make some voices much louder than others.
But again, I think there is more to it than this because Hive is a decentralized community that is only decentralized securely when there is a distribution of stake that protects it from any single large stakeholder (as was the case on the now centralized Steem) or any group of colluding accounts - a much harder issue to protect against. The content on Hive that gets voted upon is part of the protection system that promotes decentralization through distribution of stake to participants to spread the governance and continually reduce the risk of collusion and lower the opportunity for individual large actors to do damage.
This is a slow process for many reasons, one being that stakeholders want themselves to grow more than they want the distribution to take place, and that is the same for pretty much every account on the platform, with some accounts taking this to the extremes - which slows down the distribution in many ways. But, another reason that slows down the distribution is that many accounts who do earn, do not actually hold what they earn.
There is about 360 million Hive in existence with 136M vested - but it is good to remember that while it has all come from the pool, most of it was never available to post rewards. The original mining produced 250M Hive (STEEM) and the rest has come into existence from the mining through content. On Hive, part of that original mine (~70M) is in the Hive Development Fund for future use - and that means there is about 150M Hive liquid, either in on-chain wallets or exchanges. That means, there is more liquid HIVE than what has come out of the inflation pool and most of what comes out of the pool doesn't actually go to authors, it is distributed to witnesses, curators and in interest earnings.
So yeah, it is a slow process to decentralize Hive for several reasons that aren't content related, so why does content quality matter?
Well, perhaps it doesn't.... but, human nature matters. When it comes to what possessions people value, in general, people value what they have worked for, what they have put effort into - they become emotionally invested. When something is perceived as being owned easily, it doesn't hold value. This isn't just in material goods, there is a reason that so many people love the flirting and the chase of relationships - because it takes effort and work, making the getting of it a prize and accomplishment - after all, it is called scoring.
Hive offers the opportunity for people who have no capital to earn stake through their participation, but if that stake is too easy to get, it isn't going to be deemed valuable enough to keep, which means it will hit the markets, rather than become part of the distributed stake required to further decentralize and secure the blockchain from potentially bad actors - as was the case on Steem.
What is interesting about the Steem takeover is that it never had to happen in that way at all, as there was plenty of stake to secure the blockchain in opposition to Justin Sun, it just happened to mostly be on exchanges, not staked for voting. Most of that STEEM on the exchanges didn't come from the inflation pool on content, it came from the original mine, pre-content times.
Pretty much, all of that STEEM is now HIVE and there it is still on the exchanges. This liquid HIVE is also a way for decentralization to happen as it gives the opportunity for investors to buy into having stake, rather than earning it on their content, which is a very long pathway and one that many people will not actually be very good at longterm. But, that Hive is also a risk if in the off chance someone wanted to buy it all - which is not what happened on Steem - it was all bought from one individual without the use of an exchange.
My entire 130K Hive can be purchased for about 30 thousand US dollars - not much, considering the work that has gone into getting it and I bought along the way too. For many investors, the kind of work it takes to earn stake isn't as valuable as their time in other areas, which is why they have the resource availability they do, whereas for me, my only option originally was to sing for my HIVE supper, so to speak.
I think that purchasing HIVE is a very good way to put real skin in the game as off-chain resources to buy stake seems to be a harder move for many. However, earning stake from content creates a more personal relationship with the blockchain and community, as it is putting a little piece of ourselves into the Hive world. Ideally, a hybrid approach is likely the best.
So, back to human nature and quality of content. In my experience, the people who value their HIVE the most as stake are the ones who have had a pretty difficult time earning it and have put a lot of effort into their content to do so. They originally put in the work because of the future potential value perhaps, but in doing so, they created relationships with people and started to identify themselves in some way with the Hive community - it is much harder to sell what you identify with - which means that the stake more likely stays powered up and active, as does the person. This is far better for the community in multiple ways, including the aforementioned security of the chain, but also attracting other users, developing viewership and aiding further distribution.
Content quality matters because the individuals who produce it are far more likely to give a shit about what happens with the platform that hosts it and the community and audience that utilize it. You don't see many spammers, scammers and plagiarists spending their time engaging and interacting with the content they consume, you don't see many shitposters do this either. Many of the largest earners on the platform are from 2016 and are gone or have very little stake remaining - but I wonder if that would be the case if they had joined later, where earning Hive increased in difficulty.
This increase in earning difficulty is like Bitcoin mining except through content and hopefully at some point, there will be many stories about how expensive pizzas were when bought with HIVE. Bitcoin was available to mine for pretty much anyone with technical gumption, but now it is almost impossible for anyone to compete with the mining pools. This increase in difficulty can make earning on Hive far more attractive for many as the "chase", the journey, becomes part of the game. People spend many hours in front of screens playing games hard for no reward, and there is potentially a market for people to do the same on Hive in multiple ways through direct games or content delivery. For me, I play the content game on my journey to earn my stake, as do many others, but not everyone is playing in the same way.
Not everyone takes this path and that is fine, but to say that content quality doesn't matter to a decentralized blockchain that is governed by stake doesn't tell the whole story. When it comes to what people value it is, easy come, easy go and while the individual might regret their decision in the future, from a community perspective, we also have to consider what is valuable to the platform. While it might seem insignificant, the amounts that people stake from their earnings engage them as it makes Hive part of their journey.
Our journey through this life is uniquely our personal experience, shouldn't our content reflect that?
Perhaps it does.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
