Welcome to HIVE. You've probably noticed that HIVE is a tough audience for new users.
For example, I see that you didn't get a payout on your first three posts. The system does not give out post rewards when upvote total is less than $0.02 . People call the lost rewards "dust."
The Upvote Calculator shows expected rewards for a given amount of HP in one's account.
Hive has a low user retention rate because of poor interaction with new users. I've seen many new users leave after creating great posts with no upvotes or comments.
Back when I was in the plankton, I got rewards on only a third of my posts. I was extremely discouraged.
NOTE: HiveBuzz was originally called SteemItBoard before the Justin Sun fiasco.
The creators of SteemItBoard spent hundreds of hours actively engaging with new users to create a motivational system. So, @HiveBuzz did not happen by accident. It was created after a great deal of thought and interaction with new users.
The Solution to Dust
BTW: There are two bots that help with HIVE Dust. These are @dustsweeper and @dustbunny . You can hire @dustsweeper by transferring the free HIVE in your wallet to @dustsweeper . Dusty will use the transferred funds to upvote posts below the dust threshold. So, if you sent Dusty $1.00 , Dusty will vote on 50 posts with low vote totals.
As I recall, you can hire @dustbunny through a discord server.
Welcome to HIVE. I hope you find your sojourn worthwhile.
I created @dustbunny with new users and plankton specifically in mind, which is why it is happily giving some support for free.
I'll be adding @geekydad to the watchlist. This looks like quality content and genuine ambition.
New users and plankton are not expected to support the bunny with a delegation, the bunny just hopes to be remembered when they are rich... hehe
@fraenk , Thanks for supporting @geekydad (and for supporting me when I was in the plankton).
I ended up buying HIVE so that I could start sweeping my own dust. I probably shouldn't discuss masterDUSTation in public. MasterDUSTation involves the nasty habit of upvoting one's own posts.
Users in the plankton should never upvote their own posts. Plankton votes are so small that a self vote is never worth it.
Now that I can get rid of my own dust, I drop an upvote on any of my own post with less $0.03 in rewards or less ... or when I can't find other good content to curate.
The upvote calculator says that it currently takes about 900 HP to have a two penny upvote. It is usually takes $500 worth of HIVE for a two penny upvote. The actual amount changes with the size of the reward pool and price of HIVE.
The math is as follows: Each upvote reduces voting power by 2 percent. Voting power regenerates at a rate of 20% a day. That means a person can upvote 10 times a day. A two penny upvote would be worth a little under $0.20 a day.
If a person upvoted every day of the year (and the price of HIVE stayed the same); then they would receive 0.2 * 365 = $73 in value for a $500 investment. NOTE: half of the value of an upvote goes to curators and half to the author. So, a dedicated upvoter will get roughly $36.50 in curation rewards and distribute $36.50 to other authors.
The risk is that the price of HIVE might fall. When I joined, the price of STEEM was $4.00. It fell to a dime. Who knows where it will go next?
The high interest rate is the reason why people are willing to buy thousands of dollars in HP. The risk is that the price might collapse in which case the investment would be lost.