This is a reaction post to Solominer's Is it okay to stake the bare minimum HP and withdraw everything else? poll.
Let's start a new content meta here where we make content reacting to react content and so on. Below are just streams of passing thoughts that branched out from the original idea.
Disclaimer:
This reaction post is limited to what the main post tackles on. The comment sections under that post raised new perspectives on the issue which merit their own exploration so I hope you read these too. I own and stake Hive. I buy Hive/HBD with a 9/10 ratio via peer to peer. I'm hobby blogging so my concerns at getting exposed to this token shapes my Hive experience which will matter later.
The poll at the time of this writing according to votes. Let's just assume that each account that voted is a real person and not sock puppeteering the results. It seems like a few points leaning on to No.
But when we measure the votes by HP staked from the accounts we get this:
It's kind of expected that those that said Yes would have low staked HP than those that said no but this imagery yields a strong messaged about the mindset of the Hive holder. Now which camp do you think is able to give other users value?
I don't think it requires rocket science to tell that an average user would opt to take opportunities where they can get more value elsewhere if they can. BTC is a popular token and you can see from the chart below how much Hive has performed. One could make the argument that other altcoins suffer the same thing too so it's not just Hive but we're just limiting the discussion to why an average user can't be motivated to sell their Hive in exchange for USD or BTC which opens them up to more opportunities elsewhere.
If you say HBD interest rates attract more users to buy Hive, well, they probably are going to buy Hive to convert it to HBD instead of staking Hive. And we've seen the steady trend of staked HBD rising in savings while there is an increase in net power downs. HBD interest gets you more value than Hive staked interest and it's even more apparent as Hive trends down while mechanisms to keep HBD at 1$ pegged value with HBD Stabilizer proposal. You're better off staking HBD than staking Hive as what the charts and interest rates shows.
I would argue that winners in Hive's downtrend are the one's benefitting from the regular payouts DHF hands out to their project because regardless of the Hive price, their regular HBD received is still being kept close to 1$ by the HBD stabilizer. Hive goes down at 0.17$, the project still gets 100$ in HBD. Hive goes up 0.2$, the project still gets 100$ in HBD. Those payouts from DHF contribute to the selling pressure on Hive. And as much as I like to see some breakdowns and receipts on how those funds are used by the project, we just have to trust the people running the project are spending it on things they claim and the one's capable of deciding whether these projects are worth funding are voting on the proposal in good faith.
When the HBD interest rates were raised to 20%, this incentivizes more users to powerdown and buy HBD to stake. As more HP is powered down, there are now more accounts less capable of making changes in the position of witnesses or which projects DHF funds. And the large stakeholders that never powered down have more say in proportion.
HBD trended up while Hive trended down and increased in net power downs.
The reason I mentioned DHF is due to how apathetic the average user can be when it comes to governance and their say on proposals. If you tell me my 100HP has a voice in the whole ecosystem's governance, that gives me a mood boosts that last for seconds right after I see that it only takes 1 or 2 accounts with a large stake to actually make something happen. For an average user, there's less point worrying the future directions on the blockchain's governance as their small stake doesn't really permit them to make a say on anything. Not only does this make an average user less empowered speaking out also invites possible backlash to speak out an unpopular opinion about politics. So why bother getting involved for the greater good when you can just mind your own business earning on the sidelines selling whatever value you can extract.
There's a disconnect in how large stakeholders and small accounts view their Hive experience when it comes to their current life circumstance. People living in a developing country would worry more about surviving like putting food on their table or a roof on their heads using the income they have from Hive. It's not a surprise to see majority of these users avidly post even during consistent downtrends in Hive price because it's a staple necessity to do so. 1$ has more purchasing power from these developing countries and users are faced with constant financial uncertainty that they just can't bank on the future that Hive will value up when it's been chronically shown that it's been valuing down. If you see the currency (Hive) trending down often while on survival mode, you are more incentivized to spend (sell) the token now and convert it to something of value than wait for it to devalue.
For people who don't rely on their Hive income to live, good for you. I get it. I'm in this category since I'm well off not thinking I'm pressured to sell my holdings to live. But there are people that can't even afford to think about investing or future value because they are surviving in the moment. I'm not trying to appeal to pity and convince long term holders to just be ok with this mindset. While it's true that people have their own circumstances that prevent them from building their HP, those that chose to stake their HP shouldn't be guilt tripped to support such mindset of just selling as they earn something. Your stake, your say. And the reason why the sellers are able to sell anything is partly because there are users that have stake and enable these users to sell.
Some users are able to earn and sell is partly because there are users that chose to stake their HP and risk the price going down and stay for the long term game while everyone else remains on cashing out mode. Everyone wants to earn from the ecosystem but we're all employing different strategies to make it happen and this causes friction between users and their mindset on how to approach the game. It's all a game and some people play it better.
With regards to content creation and rewarding authors for good content, a little bit of disillusionment would help. If proof of brain values rewarding good content over mediocre content, how is it that mediocre content which generates no view, no viral potential outside other platforms, and yet still gets well compensated on Hive be a thing? the answer is inefficiency and subjectivity in the curation process as everyone here is made a curator. You can tell me it's unethical to vote on a post a friend made because their post sucks compared to this random stranger's post that is well made but I couldn't bring myself to give a damn, and I'll still vote on my friend's post. Why? because the average user has no strong incentive to go out of their way to support strangers whereas supporting their friend group empowers these accounts and in turn potentially reciprocating that value back to you. It's human nature.
There is an incentive in place for having a community curator status, like being that person that goes out of their way to promote others because they get compensated for their efforts in some form. Remove the compensation and you'll see less volunteer work for it, though I'm sure some would still do it for free but not many would. There's also a concept of pity votes, that's when people vote on posts because the author is nice but their content not so. They don't really have a consistent amount of good payouts therefore by the power of pity, let's reward them. A curator votes out of pity not out of merit under this circumstance.
The concept of diminishing returns. As more users get onboarded, the reward pool of support diminishes as curation efforts lean on to users that have yet to achieve a certain rep value. It's nice to have some competition for attention as this supposedly drives people to improve their content but in practice, it's not like people's content get better when they were posting while Hive was valued at 0.17$ versus their posting style while it was 0.5$ or more. There's an invisible threshold that a user reaches when their consistent stream of rewards stop because they are no longer classified as new despite how much effort they put into better their content creation effort. Because the system leans on favoring new users to grow while old users are left to find their new struggle to make ends meet (they still can provided that the limited voting power and reward pool is able to afford it). Remember all users play the game to earn but it's taboo to openly admit this to be the case because we're supposed to be above this.
Why did I bring up the diminishing returns for content creation? because this is generally the concern of casual users trying to earn by putting more effort posting. If you were a large stakeholder who has a lot of money on other investments elsewhere, it's counterproductive for your time to be thinking about posting here as you could earn more for your time if your efforts were somewhere else while the common user posts here because this is the most value they can make for their time. Had they have the option to earn more elsewhere posting or doing something else for their time, they won't be posting on Hive. My own life hack in this scenario to keep posting somewhere else for my art hobby because whether Hive exists or not, I still got a hobby and the Hive payouts are just a bonus. But this mindset isn't universal because again, we're not playing the same strategy most people will take what they can get and if they can shorten the power down time for their Hive rewards, they would do so.
If you can get it for free, why pay for it? and this is probably a great motivator to not buy Hive because people are already incentivized by the content creation system not to stake up. The promise of more curation and staking rewards is good because the selling point is it's good for the community and others also benefit from your votes but this is too optimistic when human nature can be greedy and doing the bare minimum possible while maximizing their potential income is rewarded. If there are more people staking up while users that just cash out constantly don't get affected, the net losers are those that take in the bags while they get dumped on.
It's actually efficient if you just use the bare minimum amount of HP like 15 to 25 HP for RC costs in posting and commenting while the excess amount handed to your by the ecosystem is free real estate. You only need a hive account to get started getting a piece of the grand pie and if your objective is to earn with the least costs as possible and no politics involved, this is being smart. Not saying it's right, but it is being effective if our metric is just purely for profit taking.
It really boils down to a user's preference if they want to support the lifestyle of accounts that opt to cash out with their stake. I generally follow the you do you approach to life because whatever people do with their money is their business.
Thank you for your time.
There we are a more long version of questions and answers I asked the other week about all these. From Solo's post, I kinda get more varied answers to these questions too. I guess, it was interesting to see the answers.
That being said though, I mean you do you. It's a journey around here. For some it looks like you bought some, you sold some, you staked, you power down, you bought again,staked, sold again, I mean... unless you never really invested any money over here and not even a penny, then IDK. But yeah, you do you.
The problem with these issues addressing the elephant in the room is walking on egg shells. People aren't going to be saying what's on their mind especially if they take the contrarian position because there will be monetary consequences when social relationships here turn sour. I think genuine social bonds formed go beyond just being wary about what the other party thinks of you based on your wallet transactions.
I do include wallet transactions in my curation, checking whether the user cashes out often and not, but there are redeeming acts a user can engage in that makes them worth supporting long term. But these discussions are the type that will never get more people involved because of fear of being singled out and made an example. I cash out and I buy Hive. I lost more money than the upvotes I get but I've never blame the fault to anyone's spending behavior. I'll still spend on Hive if I got more disposable income for kicks but I don't right now so there's that.
isn't this what social media supposed to do? and if we claim to be different than other social media out there, that's where it differs, where social bonds formed by genuine connection. The making money part isn't so much different anywhere these days.
At the same time, I've discussed a lot with namiks about curation problems mainly those who only take but never curate others. As you can see some members over Movies on hive received this kind of badge. Maybe it's too extreme but it's a way to also help bring awareness to also give and not constantly take. There are also users who don't engage despite a lot of warnings.
So, idk but it's nice to see things are being discussed except maybe they'll remain as discussion as any other matters around here 😃
I want to steal this idea but I'll let it sizzle for a while and figure out how to implement it, this is actually witty. About the bonds and money part, I don't want to go hard on the curation and just check the engagements more than the wallet now, the list of people to curate gets smaller with this criteria in mind.
The money all goes out the door, regardless. That individual receiving votes three years ago because they were holding while others were selling, also sold, three years later.
HBD. That's all money out the door. Saving isn't permanent. Period.
There are plenty of opportunities to bring money in the door but people are hellbent on attracting people with offers of free money, thinking that's how you get more users.
"Users." If that's what you want to attract, that's what you get. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.
And it's strange because creating products meant for consumers typically brings money in the door. Say that here and people are all like, "Wow. That's a new idea."
A lot of the expectations are built from whoever sold the idea that there was a money printer here and it does exist with all the hoops people have to go through just to get it for free. We want the value of Hive to go up, everyone wins but we have different tactics employed for our earning strategy. Seeing both camps makes me understand their points of view and just leave it up to my faith in you do you approach.
That approach is solid. That's how everyone is on the roads, and there aren't many crashes when you think about it.
When I see an area of the road that could benefit with a fast lane added, I'll suggest it and try to explain why it would help. Certainly don't expect everyone to travel on it though. And I know some might attempt it but just end up slowing down traffic. Of course not everyone can use it, for that would clog the lane and people might complain. But then I'll just point at the other lanes and recommend those be used to go fast. Not a fan of rigid guidelines. Just keep it simple. Expect roadblocks. Use detours.
Don't mind just sitting here watching the cars drive by either. Whatever happens, happens.
Good lord I love reading your inputs. And I love that I see them everywhere.
It'll probably fizzle out soon. If you poke on the bubble too hard, it pops.
Wow, there I find a lot that i agree or think in a simular way. Here i sit and also dont know how to better the Hive Eco system. But yes, humans are humans. Iam on the creators side of things and are try to be consistant in posting articles but that is very time consuming but worth the exersize. The reward is always tricky, yes it motivtes and at the same time it can honestly not be someones only driver to be active here. I use ecency as app, it has many functions but its still does. It come as easy as Instagram, so eventhough i can be reqarded here but only a few of my friends are here. 4 years telling ppl about it brought a some friends here but not a critical mass.
Anyhow i keep on creating for a little longer and hope for AltSeason.
We play the same game to earn but have different strategies to make it happen. Some play the short term and cash out what they can, while others play the long game and accumulate what they can. I don't think there's any reconciliation and that's to be expected in a decentralized environment. If we want to better the Hive ecosystem, we don't need to rally, just existing and doing stuff that makes the platform better than when we found it already helps. There's no thanks or grandness doing the simple stuff like trying to onboard people, but it helps overall.
I think for the most part people that actually do good on Hive starts relying on Hive as a backup for when things go sour... trust me I've been there and I think I still am. It's not that I want to take Hive out! It's crap and it feels like one is going backwards.
However if I could stack as much as I could I sure as hell would! I think my problem was that I should have never powered down in the first place! Would have had well over 13k Hive now, yet here I am!
I can relate to this sentiment as well. I think the blame is partly misplaced if we have to pin it on people that cash out. The usual users that do cash out need the money and if they can stack up to invest, they probably would have invested. These people aren't the demographic that can push the candle bar into green and up the price, and I'm also guessing that even with the sell pressure in place, the values they cash out aren't even enough to move the price down since it's really the big boys that are longing or shorting that dictate the price movement, not the little guys on survival mode.
Yeah that is so! That is so! The little I power down doesn't really affect anything... However take a thousand of us or even two thousand and it might be a different thing altogether... Although the current price might be something else driving behind it? The reason for it being so low? Also the price being so low is keeping me from wanting to sell... I tink I should stack up some now, it's ridicilously cheap and who knows when we will get another chance like this!
Hive is following BTC movements and controlled by market making bots that track these movements, my guess alone.
Kind of unrelated, but what does 'Spiel' mean to you Americans, exactly?
I've heard it many times, but it's not exactly how we Germans use that German word.
Other than that, I have no energy right now to read that wall of text.
But I like that general discussion on it. So I voted.
I'm not an American but for context, spiel is like that script one reads when they're making a cold call like how a telemarketer sells you stuff over the phone. In this post's context, it's supposed to sell you an idea randomly.
Thanks for passing by. These are thoughts I wanted to write under the original post's comment but like you, I am also aversive when reading my wall of texts. It's like a writer's itch to indulge.
I do see a lot of anime avatars in the Yes vote.. Quite suspicious...lol
This is an interesting post, which looked like a poll on a single subject at first, but upon further reading it discusses a pretty important topic: our governance model, lookingthe downstream efects of stake based voting. This was closely followed by a discussion of the ever present discussion topic: Do you power-up rewards or spend rewards? I enjoyed your fresh discussion of the various incentives that drive people's behavior. I think it's important to discus and acknowledge these issues intermittantly as a community.
I think I understand the economics of people in survival mode, and I think I understand the conudrum of buying bitcoin versus stacking hive. I think it much of it depends as you say on your longterm goals, and your ability to earn capitol or investment money from other sources to buy bitcoin, at least as one reason or mental framework to view this issue.
I enjoyed your discussion of time value, as I am often trying to adjust my time spent on various endeavers, based on the amount of value they return to me for my time. However this pesky concept of personal enjoyment often throws a wrench into my calculations. Math is simple, but emotions are complicated and they often don't add up.
Have a great Monday!
:)
It's a relatable subject for everyone because it tackles the taboo subject, the elephant in the room if you will. There are large stakeholders that prioritize other holders in their curation decisions, while there exists a userbase that has conflicting interest when it comes to how they treat their content creation and income on Hive that contrasts the interests of the long term holders. I could understand both positions and they each have valid points that can't be dismissed. By virtue of decentralization, we should just leave it up to people to judge how they use what they earn and I think this is the universal agreement to both sides can get behind.
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