I used to spend most of my time on (Steem, then Hive) curating. I had a pretty big delegation from a now former user that was aimed specifically at encouraging and supporting film/tv related posts given it was so niche and, back then, very under rewarded given most of the focus and users was still around finance/crypto. I basically treated it like full-time and constantly tried to find unique content to support, even outside of that niche. I realised pretty early on that the stake I held had zero value if there was no community. I've spent a lot of time since that user left somewhat fucking myself over by selling off more and more of my own stake, only to realise how much more productice and fundamental I felt in the community of Hive.
Recently I've taken to stopping power downs entirely, and enabling 100% Hive Power rewards on my posts. Focusing on building up my stake again and to start continuing what I did before. That period was definitely the best part of this community for me; I focused on others, supporting engagement and people's posts, understanding the importance of community here and essentially being the member I wanted to see in others.
I think on Hive, as you said, a lot of the content genuinely does not have true value. But there's also an aspect of that of which we fail to recognise sometimes: value to one person is different to another. There's definitely overvalued posts and low effort which make it to the top still; but I've noticed that there's also posts that the community somewhat rejects due to it perhaps being so niche. We've all definitely improved on that over the years, especially with trails which go searching for that content to reward it. In the past it definitely would've been ignored and the result would be members losing their interest very quickly. I've seen it still happening with people I've onboarded.
There's also the issue of time on here where curation and commenting and reading posts can really eat away at free time. I can see how for even people to do earn a lot it might be difficult to maintain when they still have families, jobs, and other responsibilities to attend to. I think there's a bit of correlation in this between those who live in more western countries and those more eastern. For example, in the UK there's not a lot of us that are all that active, and that's because the Hive rewards (in USD) don't really stretch far at all when converted and transferred into GBP. But in a place where USD is significantly stronger, all that effort and time goes very far in changing lives. Powering down to really pull some profit out of Hive also isn't necessary.
We really gotta be a bit more rational about what's going on here and where we're putting our stake. I feel like a lot of users just throw it around willy nilly and don't see it as not just trending posts but also investing in accounts for future use.
This is actually how I'm seeing my own stake again: an investment not just into myself, but Hive. The posts I make that end up 50% or 100% HP are going towards improving the way we interact here, and how that stake may support certain types of interactions and content. Going beyond just saying "Yeah cool post." and instead seeing the value in the person behind the account as they interact with others. I think a good way to display that appreciation is also via delegations; something I managed to learn from that former user. Handing stake to another person for the purpose of allowing them to interact and improve their niche's communication through the encouragement of connection.
keep in mind that we already did so once from 75/25 to 50/50 and while there were some people to initially complain about it I don't see any bad effects having been created by it
I've always been in favour of this move. I wrote about it a long time ago actually. How it doesn't just encourage smaller users to build stake, but forces them to do so by sending half of their rewards into a token that takes weeks to turn liquid. By posting, interacting, and curating, people are pretty much forced into becoming more productive members of the community. The more you save and build, the better that'll be as well. I'm seeing users on here that have pretty decent account sizes purely from posting now, and they're earning hundreds of dollars per month in curation alone. That should be a big incentive to many to keep building actual value here between users.
In terms of promoting more engagement in the Movies & TV Shows community, we're actually going to start running a weekly highlight on comments, and sharing the rewards with them. We have a channel in the Discord as well where people can share comments they've received that they feel deserve more curation, and if we agree we'll support it.
As for my own account: I know I could be doing more, and I've already started to improve things.
By the way I realise this is one big messy reply full of ramblings. :^)
All good but as you say there's not always a lot of free time so it took me a whole to read it and won't be able to counter with a long reply neither. I agree with a lot of what you say and I've personally also been fighting with real life, debt, etc to remain powered up and continue to grow for the community. I know how I am, how I've handled things ever since I got here and how I will continue in the future. I won't be one of those people to eventually "break bad", start spamming posts or comments and giving everyone 1-2% votes once the delegations are gone or I've gotten to a certain amount of stake I feel comfortable with. I see this happening often unfortunately, either people take the stake and leave or leave after someone steps in and tells them they can't continue to act thay way. Even worse are some that just constantly take and take and even if hive was their first intro to crypto and made it possible for them to trade it into others that may or may not have changed their lives we still end up never seeing them again on chain or showing gratitude for what it did for them or even keeping or buying back a little stake just as appreciation for the network. There's all kinds of people and as many said back in the day it was mostly the wrong kind that joined first and stayed, not just on this chain but in crypto in general. to this day we're still in the shitty people phase, mostly just meme coins, defi clones, rugpulls, scams, etc all only here to make it for themselves while taking from another.
I do have hope that Hive not only will be different but already is a lot and I see examples of this every day and I'm very proud of some stakeholders who not only have I supported and invested in myself but have also chosen to stay, evolve and improve themselves and the ecosystem. it'll be a very bright future ahead of us, the chain and software can quite literally not be stopped so it's going to be interesting seeing more and more good come out of it.
omfg comment ended up being quite long and not so relevant to yours either, can you believe I wrote this on my phone?