Yeah it started off strong but seems to have some downtime in terms of development currently, can't blame them though, those things happen and have happened quite a few times with holozing as well. There's not a lot of money/funding on Hive so that often becomes an issue as well that may delay things.
I never touched that as a curator from early on, paying for guaranteed votes (even if there's a way to get blacklisted I think) kind of defeated the purpose of curation and I just didn't see the appeal. I'm frankly quite surprised people use it so much but can't say too much about it either not knowing/having followed up with it to know how it works exactly.
Splinterlands is probably always a good time to get into and stay active, hoping the best for the flagship game of our blockchain in the future!
Yes, I agree. I don't blame the devs because those things happen as you said. I will keep on playing it, because I have fun. And maybe it evolves postively some day.
The way I see it is that I “pay” with Hive (which is converted to HP on the @steembasicincome account) and only “get back” the paid Hive a few years later through the upvotes. This means I have to stay with Hive for a long time in order not to make a loss. But on the other hand, I could also simply convert the Hive to HivePower myself, then I would simply have more Curator Rewards and could decide for myself which content I upvote. But I don't think a bit of diversification is wrong, as only a small part of my hive flows into HSBI.