While I am able to think somewhat clearly, I am going to roll with it.

Firstly, over the last couple years these electric rent scooters have been littering the streets everywhere, as people who are no longer capable of walking just leave them wherever their slovenly selves choose. While I do like the idea of micropay services like this, I have never used one myself, but at some point there is going to be pushback against them strewn across the roads as far as the eye can see.

Now....

Comment voting.

Firstly...

YAY!

I have never given up on comment voting since it became an economically punishable offence at the introduction of the Economic Improvement Proposal due to the curve. It was a necessary protection at the time in case people didn't downvote - let's see if they will downvote now...

Because Hive is pretty much relative in terms of staked voting, I suspect that since the end of 2019, 15-20% of my curation was eaten by my desire to vote on comments, which is probably about 2-3000 HIVE or something like that (I can't do the math as I am not thinking that clearly at the moment).

Now that the convergent curve has been removed, which required about 16 HIVE in total votes on a post/comment for it to get full potential value and the removal of the 5 minute voting window, we should start seeing more comment voting happening again, which means there will be more ways to be rewarded by more people, without having to create a top-level "blog" post for reward.

Personally, I welcome this change, even though it is also going to lead to more people self-voting their comments, which if they do this on my posts, might incur a downvote or at least, not an upvote. For most people commenting on me at least, getting a few percent from me makes more economic sense than 100% from themselves. If I see people voting all of their comments, I will DV all of their comments too, and also anything else that is open perhaps.

Comment voting is awesome!

Look at that stupid electric scooter and think about how much they make through micropayments globally on them. This is what we should be encouraging the internet with - this is what Hive does! Micropaying on many kinds of digital and social activities. Fucking get on it!

I love being able to reward people with something of actual value for commenting and now that I am not going to be punished for it financially, I will also try to upvote more comments on other posts as well. I hope more people will do this and get themselves out there with a little over their value to pile on decent comments. Also - Remember that you have 2.5 free DVs for a reason too, so if you see people abusing the new economics in your opinion - you can discourage them as you see fit.

With the new economic mechanisms in place with the hardfork, we have the chance to shift the interactive community culture in ways that we want to see it go. Yes, everyone works on incentive, but remember that isn't always monetary incentive - but often is. If we want to see more of a behavior, we have to incentivize it in some way and over the last year, comments have largely been incentivized by attention, as not everyone was willing or able to add significant value to a comment.

With the hardfork taking away the curve and a move back to linear voting, this means that the full weight of a vote is applied at even the smallest scale, and by the looks of things, that means that there is an increase of about 30% in total voting value across the board. For example, I was voting pre-hardfork at 5% for about 11 cents and now that same 5% weight is worth about 21 cents. It isn't a straight comparison unfortunately as I have a bit more vote value now and the pricefeed has changed by about 10% too since then, due to the increasing HIVE price on the exchanges - so this is a guesstimate.

However, it means that more people might be willing to add some comment votes, especially since it doesn't matter for them to get their curation reward. Pretty much, any vote placed in the first 24 hours of a post/comment will get a flat 50% return in curation, no matter if they vote after 1 second or 23 hours. This means that no one need wait to vote on a post or comment anymore, as there is no advantage or disadvantage to do so. When you get a comment you want to vote on, you can vote on it with no penalty. I will try to remember to do this fast, as a read receipt while I am replying, rather than write the reply and then wait to vote (when I remembered to wait).

What this means is that most people (generally people vote on newish posts) will get the majority of their curation at the 50% rate, no matter if they are voting on main posts or comments. This can lead to some interesting changes in behavior, as while it encourages comment voting, it also means that there is no penalty for voting something after lots of other people have voted it. This can lead to some great posts earning even more, as no one is turned off by a reduction in curation return.

And of course, the main reason for this change in the first place was to put humans on an even footing with the maximization bots, as there is no longer game in voting early before large votes. What this can lead to is a changing in autovoting behavior, where rather than maximization of curation return, the relatively balanced 50% can lead to maximization of rewards on content that is worthy.

As someone who benefits from autos myself, I am hoping that my content is still worthy of attracting them as well as manual votes, as there is nothing wrong with autos, if they are falling on content that is valuable. The problem with autos is when they are voting on crap content for whatever reason because it maximizes curation returns. Since this maximization is no longer a valid reason to vote, people may as well vote on something worthwhile.

And I think that this is where I will round it out for the night, as my head is starting to hurt and I should get some rest. I have spoken to a few people recently (the last months) who are quite active on Hive as readers and curators and have relatively large voting accounts to their name or at their disposal, and they have been struggling to find content that is worth it. They should have no such trouble, as their should be an abundance of good, original content on Hive to choose from, to throw some support behind, follow and vote on.

This is up to the creators though, as it is their job to create, to get themselves out there, to make some noise, gain some attention and do it with content that can consistently attract support. It isn't easy, but for those with some skills and wills, it could lead onto a completely new life trajectory in the near-future. I really hope more people start supplementing their life with creativity and in so doing, add revenue streams to their personal economy.

Right, my head is done in for the night, but I am so glad that things have gone smoothly for the hardfork and we can now enter into a period of more incentivized and interaction-driven community activity. The next hardfork will bring in Resource Credit Delegation pools and that will give us another set of tools to build with again. Can't wait!

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]