there is a REWARDS pool, and rewards are given in exchange for something - a service, a product, work performed, an idea, or a desired behavior.
My rewards are not bad but they are very dependent on one upvote. If that one person doesn't upvote my post rewards becomes very small. Recently he did not upvote a few of my Witcher posts so the difference is noticeable. I guess that is the price I pay for not being more sociable and not having a large group of friends.
Still posting on hive is much better than just posting on youtube. Because here I get rewarded without fulfilling some insane requirements like having 500 subscribers or watch hours.
Being sociable on the internet should be easy for the antisocial :)