Yes, earning your first $1 here is easy, and if you make some influential friends, post every day (only once per day - don't get downvoted as a spammer!), and curate then you can make a nice side income.
Certainly enough to fund your espresso/Slurm habit, buy some video games, or in certain parts of the world do much more.
There are outliers here that do very, very well. I struggled to find someone who could be emulated, that is didn't start with a huge investment or run a witness. The best example I could come up with was @geekgirl (sorry for singling you out, I mean this as a compliment!).
Keep in mind the compounding effects of keeping reinvesting, plus USD value of Hive has been higher than it is now, so the potential earnings are actually greater than they appear. Of course, investments also go down as I unfortunately know all too well.
Hive as Rainy Day Savings
It's not necessarily about making a regular income, though some people do.
I have been saved a few times recently by having my wallet as an emergency savings account (kind of, there is a draw-down period, of course). Should I have kept the coins in place for when the value goes back up to when I bought in? Of course, but keeping paying the bills was more urgent.
What to Expect?
Earning enough to pay rent or a car payment is not the default.
As you might have gathered from my habitual doom and gloom moaning, even though I stupidly invested at the top of the valuation like a dork, I make more meaningful money elsewhere with other things. This is the reason I created a tool to repurpose the content I create here on my websites.
A big part of why I struggle on Hive is because I haven't been able to find ways to network very well that suit me.
I don't do well in realtime environments like Discord, nor do I attend the physical Hive meetups. Hard to get people to know and like you if they never meet you.
But I also need to point out it is because there are so many ways to fail here - you have just one post per day, and that post must get a bunch of valuable ($1+) votes, and within a deadline of 7 days. After 7 days you will earn nothing from that content directly (hence I repurpose it on websites that can earn indefinitely).
I have also put off a bunch of people because I keep arguing about politics because I still can't learn to take a breath versus reacting in the moment.
Friends Aren't an ATM
With the best will in the world the people who routinely vote on your stuff won't vote on everything you create, because they only have so many big votes per day to go around and there are more people to vote for than votes to go to them.
There are some reciprocal auto-voting arrangements, I am sure, but getting one of those deals likely depends on YOUR vote value also being high. Not something beginners need to think about.
Be grateful when you get votes, but make your focus be around creating content that people WANT.
About that Repurposing Idea
I mentioned that your content here has to succeed within 7 days, but that is not guaranteed. What about if you could make that content earn forever?
On my own sites I have posts that have been earning me money literally for years. I once around a decade ago reviewed the AWeber email marketing service and I still get cheques.
Yes, SEO has gotten a lot more difficult in the last 18 months as Google starts favouring Reddit and their own AI summaries etc, but it is still where the bulk of my income comes from.
My monthly returns are here in USD. Not nothing, and better than I made from Google Adsense, but if I relied on just the Hive earnings it would be less than minimum wage.
That same content on my own websites that I own and control could double this amount by referring one affiliate purchase or booking a 1 hour consulting client for me.
What I have created is a free WordPress plugin that pulls your content into your website, reformats it from Markdown, and copies the images. It does this automatically, so all you need to do is decide when and how you want to publish that content.
Remember, your content is YOURS. The community here doesn't own it. The community probably does deserve exclusive first access to it, though.
I would suggest you don't repurpose your content until after the 7 days is up, maybe more. Plus I would usually suggest adding and enhancing it too, make it unique.
It's good for beer money, but most people won't get rich off it. As I said elsewhere, it is probably the easiest way to make money online.
I think people are already finding ways to earn beyond 7 days. There is always the tipping option, but I will admit to not using that much.
I do pretty well here considering I am just playing around with Hive. I have managed to connect with a lot of people over the years and part of that is from physically meeting. These days I could do fine just from curation, but I enjoy posting. If Hive grew massively and attracted more 'pro' content creators I would expect to earn less from what I make, but then the price might go up.
Hive offers opportunities and you have to make the best of them. I don't do any deals to get votes, but friends and I will just support each other anyway. New people have to build their own connections whilst avoiding being seen as selfish/greedy/scammy. It's a tricky tightrope.
Yes you do very well here and I think another reason you do well is consistency.
I on the other hand have been very inconsistent over the years, partly because of my mental health issues, plus our big move back from Canada etc, but also when I get busy the squeakiest wheel gets the grease :)
Must admit I forgot about tipping, not sure how popular that is?
There are now tools that allow people to have paywalled content, the content is only encrypted for people paying HBD etc, that has potential for the future too
If I didn't have a day job then I might put more effort into building a brand here, but the likely returns would not be much more than I get. Others make a lot more on every post for whatever reasons, but I don't fret about it. Hive is tiny and it helps to know the right people but if it scales up then it could change.
InLeo has the subscription thing that offers an alternative way to earn, but I don't know how big it is. People need to try different models. The great thing about just voting is that it doesn't cost you, but you can earn from it. Meanwhile Patreon, Onlyfans etc do well from people spending their money. There doesn't have to be just one way to do things.
Right, as I say in the post, what works for others might not suit you and vice versa. Many options :)