No it’s not
Money is a good incentive to do many things. It is certainly a necessity. You need it to get things done. But unfortunately it is not the only incentive. Let me explain.
Is there a monetary value to these fall leaves and the rays of autumn sun shining through them? You may say yes, or no. But you know what? It’s not for sale ;)
From management schools to living room of a developing country it can be a heated debate. However, as opposed to give my opinion let me lay out a few examples.
During the financial crisis 2008-09; big investment houses didn’t want to let go executive bonuses worth millions of dollars. Even though they were getting bailed out by the public. They said they need to stay competitive and therefore need to incentivize their executives with money. Two things happened:
Most of those executives didn’t have a clue what they were doing
They took the money and they ran
Incentive didn’t help them to be loyal. It neither helped the companies nor helped the public. In only help the person giving and receiving the incentive. The person or board giving the incentive also received monetary incentive in return. So it is just a back scratching activity.
Another example from tech world. When Google incentivized their employees during the mid to late 2000s, they found out quickly that giving extra money won’t get them talent beyond a certain point. Meaning tech industry is competitive. People knows competition’s salary. So although you can get a sought after developer say from AMZN by giving him/her higher salary.... but it won’t last long. Soon MSFT may offer even higher salary and take the sought after developer away. It’s called “poaching”.
So they thought just salary won’t do it. They must incentivize in some other ways. So they started to give employees others perks.... free food... free laundry.... better life inside campus... emotional support... family support.... flexible hours... work from home (well before Covid)...unlimited vacation... And together all these worked much better than just money.
Why are you in Hive?
Yes, to earn a bit of additional income. Understood. There is nothing wrong with that. However, if that is the only thing you think about as you produce your content, you likely will produce ordinary stuff. You know why? Because your creativity in not in it. Your heart is not in it. You will churn post after post, and soon no one will have any interest in them, including you.
How do you know if your content in gaining traction. No, not how much vote you are receiving. It’s how many unique users you are receiving. How many interesting conversations are happening on your post. How many people are talking, praising after your stuff off line. What is your general influence on the chain.... how many knows you and how many you know personally. That’s how you measure success. That’s how you measure value.
If money would be the best incentive you wouldn’t be doing Facebook,eh? The reason you do Facebook or Instagram is because your friends are there. You do that to communicate, you do that to have a good time. You don’t earn any money from Facebook. What’s your incentive? You are there and active, eh? So, think about it.
You don’t hold hand of your loved ones because of money, you don’t hug your kids because of money, you don’t sit down next to your elderly to have a chat because of money, you don’t give a phone call to your long lost friend because of money. What’s your incentive?
It’s love, it’s respect, it’s friendship. That’s your incentive to be in life. That’s your incentive to be in hive. You do that, and money will follow you.
I mainly agree with you. Here is a questions though, would those employee still be motivated if you removed their base salaries or cut their salaries?
Hive is an economy or economy of smaller economies. Financial incentives are its dna. But you are right only focusing on financial benefits would make the participant more miserable than enjoying the journey and focusing on doing things they actually enjoy doing. It is in participants best interest to focus thing they like doing and figure out how they fit in within the Hive economy. There is room for everybody, for people from everywhere and all walks of life.
Networking, slow and steady growth, finding communities that are better fit for individual journeys makes participants time spent in more meaningful manner and be successful with financial gains as well.
Good point. I don't think cutting their salary will directly help. However, it is the whole package. I personally know people who took 50% play cut to live closer to the family. I know people to changed job for a lower salary but better work culture and quality of life.
While I can't speak for the author, I can state my own understanding and opinions.
For most people in our current system and especially those in the USA, unlikely. Most people barely make enough to get by and a salary cut would not go well unless the amount cut is being replaced with something that ultimately has more value to that individual.
However... almost all people have a drive to improve themselves, and arguably things would be a lot better if people had all their survival needs met regardless of their employment status. Humanity has reached a point where we could easily cover the basic needs of everyone if we put the effort into it, it's a long term investment that would lead to large increases in productivity and technological progress over the course of a few decades.
People would be more likely to go into riskier, more innovative, and more rewarding fields if they didn't have to worry about not being able to eat if things turn sour. We would ultimately end up with more great scientists, engineers, and innovators that would provide massive benefit to everyone. The worst jobs would end up getting automated, and the ones that can't be automated would still be filled as people would still want luxuries and many don't have the patience to go into the riskier fields.
Right now, the game is rigged, those at the very bottom are more likely to win the lottery than to significantly improve their situation by the end of their lives through hard work. Meanwhile, those at the very top barely have to lift a finger to stay where they are, and with minimal effort can accumulate more wealth at a rate that most people can't realistically comprehend.
Humanity must move towards a more egalitarian society, lest those at the very top will functionally become equivalent to feudal lords in the age of automation.
As for Hive, it would probably be better for Hive as a whole to place more incentive on things that are built up over the long term, such as reputation.
Building a platform on top of Hive that minimises the underlying monetary system, or potentially even completely hides it, is one of the projects I'm planning on looking into eventually once I've earned the resources needed to build such a platform.
Sure it will, if the employee don’t have any other job :) (I am trying to be funny)
It's true that when we spend hours on Facebook, Messenger or Twitter, we don't do that hoping to get something out of it. We do it out of love and for the satisfaction of the mind. But if there is no income by writing in Hive, we leave it after a few days. One of the reasons is that there are very few people we know here to interact with. So the biggest way to make contribution in this platform is to make more friends here. Then only Hive would seem like a beautiful place rather a money-making machine.
Excellent point. Most of our friends, family.... people we love to interact is not here. If they were, this would be a different place. So can't we bring them one at a time?
Of course we can bring them. The problem is that most people think that only articles can be written here. But, besides the writings, people can contribute as per their talent. It could be painting, cooking, homesteading etc. For the diversification of Hive platform, it is high time to bring our near and dear ones.
It should be like don't run after the money, let the money come to you. Although it's depends on what people want, people have to choose their own path. I am totally agreed with you that unless our writing reaching to the others we shouldn't be satisfied or there is nothing which can make you proud. A true writer/blogger never satisfied with his word.
We all can improve as long as we feel there is need to improve. There are so many I see here who have generated a template and keep doing the same thing day in and day out. You probably can guess why I wrote this...
Yep, I can! The room for improvement always open for everyone, some grabs it & some not. Doing the same things again & again will just limit our capabilities, but there is no fun. And without fun it will be boring. After all, quality matter's!
I must admit, I would probably work harder for better work perks!
Same here! Especially unlimited vacation to South of France with free wine! Hell yes!
Yeah, I would take a pay cut for that!!
Powerful words
Reading this post made me rethink many things. I really am doing everything wrong, because I really only care about money and when I don't get it, I lose faith in hive and get discouraged. Thank you very much for sharing this valuable and useful information.
If this helps you in any way in future, I will be glad that I have done my part.
Dada, Thank you very much for your the beautiful content,
When I choose the Job, firstly I ask the HR manager, office time, weekly holiday, after that money.
Facebook and Hive Chan both are different platform at least by the using perspectives.
Lot of people are that way. Money is only one element that controls quality of life. There are many other elements to consider
The dual of EXISTENCE and LIVING.
People could live in the mountains with their partner and produce offspring that all live of the land and thus negate all costs of living (avoiding land authorities of course).
However living within the confines of society means you can't escape the costs. That's the game of Life really. To reach the top and gain back your existence to no longer worry about money. Which YES is alignment with your point that value exists beyond money.
Unfortunately most people aren't able to get anywhere near the top. Now we could argue that this is by design of the system or just because most humans aren't very clever.
Consumerism: that's the key.
We work for the man, then the man tricks us into giving back that money in many ways. Banks even long realised that giving people incentives to save was bad for economies. Stimulus packages are about consumerism. They only need people to be the cogs. Money goes out to the bottom and comes back to the top. Capitalism!
u dont get what u write about dood