I guess I see what you are aiming at there. Meaning, in platform like Youtube, for example, all the votes are equal in weight and it does not affect if a user with bigger stake is coming in and casting the vote or just a regular viewer? I don't think it is entirely true these days as most of these platforms do have algorithms and certain metrics on what gets to the trending page and what doesn't and even some content that does not get presented to the viewers because they fail at certain metrics. You still need to put in work and grind your way to the top, work those algos and other things. It is similar on Hive where you have to grind and build your reputation, following and support for years. Should it be easy? That is a different debate. I think in that regard, it can be easier on Hive sometimes than on other platforms due to shire size of the userbase.
Currently my observation of the trending page is that there is a lot more great stuff that makes it there, and also that there are bunch of whales that are hitting posts that get close to trending page and then they end up there. There are a lot of curators of all sizes voting content since after a recent harfork split of rewards is 50/50.
Agree, working the algos and grinding all are important. But I maybe have a more feelings based metric for you. Good content should generate a lot of engagement. And we all know most of the top voted posts in each subcommunity barely get any engagement.
And why is this? Obivously because it's not interesting for them? But to who was it interesting? Would the answer be: 1. curation guild and 2. (a few) whales?
In OCD there was only 1 or two curator who determined which posts would get a vote. And yes after a while we were asked to read through the posts, but honestly who read every post of the other curators?
I don't know what is barely any engagement. I see a lot of posts on trending with 30 or so comments on them. Also if you look at the trending many of these posts are quite fresh, people comment sometimes within a day or more after the post is posted. Many are waiting for a bunch of comments to come in before answering them etc.
In case of OCD you would have to speak with others who are currently involved in the project, I believe OCD had evolved a lot also in how it operates and has many programs to support Hive creators.
It seems you have not been around much to see how all these things developed and evolved, I suggest getting familiar with them once again. I am sure your views would also change once you saw all the recent developments.