I think 'tiered patronage' is about the best two-line descriptor of how distribution of rewards on hive ACTUALLY works, at least it's the best I can come up with for now, I'm sure that'll evolve into something better.
The reason I say this is that most of the long-term regular Witnesses and authors have managed to gain the patronage of one or more Whale or Orca accounts that....
- For Witnesses simply vote their witness to bring them into the T20 or T50 which allows them to make a significant profit (in the case of the T20) or break even plus a small profit (in the case of the T50 or thereabouts).
- For Authors - regularly upvote them with sufficient HP to give them a regular, reliable income that makes posting on a daily (it's usually daily) basis worthwhile.
I use the term 'Patron' because a patron is a wealthy person (/account) who is prepared to sponsor/ fund an individual/ individuals on a regular basis - the Patron supports an individual they think has promise doing something they value and they carry on providing funding as long as they deem the services/ content that individual is performing to be worthwhile/ and up to a certain standard.
Of course there's no necessity in this system that the person/ account being patronised is doing anything worthwhile or good - it maybe that the Patron just likes them (or their parents) and will just go on providing funding WHATEVER that person does.
NB I can't help but think here of various Dickens novels - wealthy characters being the benefactors of poorer characters is a constant theme in his novels, and the receipt of patronage isn't always just!
Decentralised (ish) Patronage...
But the Dickens analogy doesn't quite do it because on Hive there is a larger role played by medium sized and smaller accounts (plural) such that most successful authors and witnesses have multiple regular Patrons.
This is most definitely true of Authors who receive regular votes from several people with different interests - and this is further decentralised with Hive-engine token 'second layer' tribes, and sometimes facilitated by curation accounts that are controlled by more than one person, which in turn might be Powered by delegations, but I still think 'Patronage' works to describe what's going on.
Patronage of Authors....
If you look at the top earners on Hive from @dalz we see some pretty similar names coming up over and over again - most regularly the two @taskmaster4450 accounts - now whatever you think of his content, what ever you think the actual value of his content is, your opinion is just mostly irrelevant, - he's gained the regular patronage of a lot of people, his most powerful patron in fact being from the @leovoter account.
Now it's fairly obvious from the meaningful comment to vote ratio on TM's posts that the majority of people don't watch his videos or read his content (you can say the same of anyone, TM's just unlucky enough to be P1) - but that is also completely irrelevant in a patronage system - patrons don't necessarily pay per view for specific content and most regular voters, including who ever controls the LV account will just check in periodically to see if TM is still 'on task' so to speak (i.e. not turned abuser) and if so keep their votes on.
Unless in the meantime someone has started producing better, regular content, in which case TM's patrons may switch their alliances.
In fact with TM it's possible that the enormous LV vote he receives every day is a kick-back for his large LEO holding - and if this is the case this is also largely irrelevant, Patrons can do what they like with their stake for whatever reason!
Another example of how patronage works (and works well) is with @cahlen who's recently broken into the top paid authors...I've been following him for months and he's been grinding away and I'd rather he powered up a bit more Hive IMO but his content is excellent, and he's finally (and justly IMO) got into the top paid authors because he's gained the Patronage of @jamesC who has long delegated to 'alternative' curation projects -currently @resonator ( it used to be abundance-tribe before Kenny started getting downvoted and threw his toys out of the pram) and also @vforvapid - this is probably a better example of how 'Patronage' on Hive works - as these two large accounts actively seek to reward those producing 'off-grid/ spiritual/ alternative' type content.
Now I could give more examples, but the chances are if you scrawl through ANY author who gets decent rewards on a regular basis you'll find they have 'Patrons' who are Whales and Orcas.
We also see this Patronage system at work in the recent voting for Ukraine posts - a way of supporting citizens is to upvote their content.
Patronage of Witnesses..
You also see a kind of higher level of Patronage with the witnesses...
To become a T20 witness you NEED (currently) the Patronage of @blocktrades - it's highly unlikely you'll break into consensus without it because Trades controls at least 16M HP and you need over 60M HP to get into the T20....
That's just a fact of the way HP is currently distributed.
NB It's also true to say that a Trades vote won't guarantee you a T20 Witness position either...
Now I'm not a technical expert so I don't deem to know why Trades votes for what witnesses - he'll have his own reasons, but that's his right - his stake - and he gets to control the consensus because he's the only person prepared to hold such an ENORMOUS amount of Hive.
It could be that the people he votes for really are DEDICATED Hive Witnesses with the knowledge and understanding to FIX things if anything goes wrong, rather than just those who run a 'Hive in a Box' node?
That's just the way it is ATM. We would need a second 20M HP account for patronage of Witnesses to be more decentralised - even @smooth can't compete with Trades, a full third of his Witness votes aren't in consensus, Trade's ratio is 20-20.
Having said that pretty much every T20 Witnesses also depends on MORE Hive Power than Trades has from other accounts to gain consensus - so Patronage of Trades is necessary but not sufficient.
Patronage on Hive - Final Thoughts...
Of course with voting on content there is manual curation, some people vote more widely and more sporadically, but honestly, trawl people's votes on their content - it's usually a case of same old same old, but I'll grant the fact that Patronage doesn't necessarily explain ALL of what gets on Trending, voting is also more random sometimes!
And maybe Patronage isn't such a bad thing - it gives a bit of stability rather than your income being up and down all the time - something which could be important with witnesses given their crucial role in the chain.
NB my aim here isn't to criticise, just to come up with an accurate descriptor of how things work on Hive - and to my mind 'Patronage' is it!
As a final word.... one interesting parallel with Patronage in Dickens' is that you don't necessarily know who are Patrons are, and you might not necessarily be that impressed when you find out...
Everyone has their own brain and perspectives, so we all subjectively value different content for our own reasons. Appreciation of this is baked in to the design of Hive's Proof of Brain algorithm. One of the under-rated attractors for Steem/Hive is that stakeholders can not only receive rewards for creating content but they can also promote lines of thinking and messages online. The mainstream media systems are totally dominated by wealthy groups/individuals that heavily warp the messages from behind the scenes, to try to achieve their goals in society, so this kind of thing is nothing new. The difference here is that anyone can buy in and essentially 'buy advertising' through curation of the topics and messages that they want to promote. A beautiful part of Hive is that creators can receive support and funding without even being in contact with their supporters and get amplified just as a natural result of the resonance between themselves and other stakeholders.
The resonator account aims to manually curate content creators that excel in communicating topics and messages that are 'high priority' for humanity but which would not get the exposure they deserve otherwise.
Most of us understand the extent to which the banking system and corrupt power structures are behind many of humanity's problems. @Cahlen's choice to experiment with designing his life in a way that completely removes himself from the grip of these groups is one that could potentially teach many of us to do similar in our own ways. By showing us what is possible, he/we could therefore make a dent in the economic and power problems faced by so many of us in an empowering way, without waiting for someone else to solve the problem for us. This deserves as much support as we can offer!
As we have said from the beginning - solve problems for humanity and @resonator will help you!
These are wise words that we would like to read more often here ! I see that we are part of the same team (even if in reality, there is only one but many participants are not necessarily aware of it, well, not yet ^^)
I really like this part of your comment - it's far from the only one - but I fervently believe that it's up to individuals to motivate themselves on their own level, those who are waiting, well... they'll keep waiting for the majority !
What can be taught does not need to be learned
V. Hugo
I hope your project will help to spread the word, and from echo to echo, put more and more people on the right track - which is a subtle mix of many practices :)
Great comment - Anyone would think that what's Steem/ Hive was designed for in the first place!
I agree that @cahlen is most inspirational!
History is full of examples of the original intent behind important ideas being lost and humanity losing out as a result!
Christianity springs to mind for starters!
Haven't managed to do that yet, but I have at least pointed out a few open wounds this society has. I've posted about such topics mostly in the "deep dives" community.
Nice to hear you're doing manual curation. I'm a strong believer in the organic side of Hive and have been advocating that for years now.
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There are already solutions for the majority of our challenges which are not being shared enough. With the internet and uncensored social media it's now much easier for people to learn from the trailblazers and path cutters than ever before. It's never too late to live by example - not everyone has to live under a tree! ;)
Awesome. We need more curators like you!
Very interesting thoughts. I always thought that people actually read the posts and vote based on those. But then again, if someone delivers quality stuff every day then why not vote for their content on regular basis? I love it though that you bring it on table cos this being web3 and all, it is an issue that we all should be talk about and be interested in.
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Only voting for the posts you read would be ideal, but since votes are rewarded, you'll probably get fewer rewards when you don't use automatic votes.
I didn't even know that there was such a concept as automated votes. Thanks for the info though, learned a new thing today!
Yes it's true, you won't be getting optimal curation returns if you don't auto, but then again if you're on here every day it's easy enough to curate manually.
Yeah, think I'll go the natural way. If one of my favorite authors flips out and I'm on a monthly drinking binge then what? 😅
People cannot read so many post on daily basis. Most post are auto upvoted.
That is very hard to define , actually everyone has different taste and parameters and different affinity in accordance to human nature.
Web3 is just a tool, issue lies on tool users.
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Very hard to get agreement about what counts as quality - I don't think there's anything wrong with patronage as long as it's reviewed periodically.
I agree.
That is exactly my point. Now why go the centralized way when we have this tool?
Some people do, but I think for most regulars it's patronage!
One thing that bothers me a lot is that not all top 20 witnesses are active contributors and developers of the Hive protocol, at least they don't seem to. Blocktrades seem to do a good job, but that person, or that group of people, seem, from a far, to do most, if not all, of the development.
The top 20 make more than enough to literally pay at least a couple of devs to dedicate to working on the protocol specifically.
Our protocol is a great feat, fast, cheap and efficient one, but we kinda take it for granted that stuff will work well forever.
For instance, if we need to implement sharding, like Ethereum will, to increase throughput and storage and other technicals, could we do it? I think we don't seem to have the amount of brains for such a big feat.
Although it may be in the best interest of the top 20 witnesses that few can work with the protocol, so that instead of a consensus being reached for being straightforwardly good ,it is instead reached because there is no competition and no alternatives for the path which to follow, this consensus.
Blocktrades is a guy called Dan Notestein - as I understand it he runs a dev company and he has team working on the chain software - the second place GTG I know is very knowledgeable - obviously howo is paid to work on Deving - I'm not sure about the rest - I think a few might get their Trades votes because of what they've developed on Hive - Marky springs to mind - rather than the deeper development.
It's quite possible that some of BlockTrades Dev team are in those T20 witnesses, I don't know how many people he employs, but it would make sense.
But some just seem to be along for the ride, you're right. It's a good idea for a post 'what do the Top 20 witnesses actually do'...?
I mean IF they're not FULL TIME deving Hive, why are they in the T20?
Then again aren't governance and Deving different, the later funded by the DAO?
Oh they all vote for each other, and no I wouldn't expect much investment because of this!
I think there's an element of luck in getting noticed by big accounts, but putting in the work will help. Some will just set you up for automatic votes and they you can do pretty well. I have a few who support me like that, but I rarely get a post worth much more than $40. I'm not going to complain though. I suspect some people will take account of how much you have invested here. I just want to see more people power up so the rewards get spread further with the big accounts gradually having less influence. That will take a while. Some of the whales and 'curation projects' have massive votes. Meanwhile some people will just keep hunting for a whale vote rather than actually trying to build an engaged following.
I think you're right, consistency is key if you're a regular author.
But there's still luck to an extent I look at some people's rewards and think 'really'?
But then again other people probably say that about me.
The crucial thing also I think is to try and forget about the money almost and just post as you would post anyway!
I don't think everyone looks at your wallet. What really matters is how interesting you are. Obviously having a negative reputation does not help.
One of the most interesting reads on Hive's culture and psychology! I feel that Hive has a decent balance of manual and autovoters. Pushing out even a decent piece of content will find you the upvotes you deserve and sometimes even more. Which is okay. If getting consistent upvotes changes someone's life for good, it's a win for all of us.
Hey thanks, I think Hive is changing people's lives for sure, at least hundreds of people, potentially thousands!
That's right. Most people will pay it forward! At least that's what we can hope. 🤘
In general terms, everything is clear, everything is like in real life. Thanks a lot for the amazing post.
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STOPI gotta get myself a patron. I once had @leo.voter, but it kind of left me behind. I'm getting a maximum of 3 upvotes a week from that account. I have probably been a bad boy lately, who knows... I got the gist of the post though and if you revisit it in five years it will be as relevant as it is right now.
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Yeah I'm not sure who controls that @leo.voter account nowadays.
It's not just one curator, I know that for sure. At the end of the day, we're all subjective and I can understand why I'm no longer curated by it that often. No worries about that.
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I think I get more than my share of those votes, so I'm quite happy. It has an enormous amount of HP, which largely accounts for why TM is the highest earner, that and the double day churn.
Problem mostly lies on Hive perception, Most of the user in Hive are not powering up enough Hive to make it decentralized and whatever left are following curation trail /delegation.
I do not expect more but I think user should atleast stake 50% earning in the system instead of powering down all.
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Thank you. 🙏
Thank you for sharing your unique point of view about hive.
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I regularly watch his and jongolson's videos. I also watch Priyanarc's Ukraine videos, cahlen's stuff, and gubbatv. Number of comments I made on their stuff, almost ZERO. I just upvote their stuff every now and then but I don't really want to comment. I don't want it to feel like work, man. Where I HAVE to make a comment. I'm just treating HIVE content the same as Youtube. Chill out, zone out, watch something, read something, then on to the next thing that catches my interest...
Yes fair point, but comments is all I've got to go on as a measure, but you're right, it's another IMPERFECT indicator here on Hive!
Great post and I must commend your bravery on this. It can be a touchy subject and people might take it the wrong way.
Hive is a reflection of society and patronage is almost akin to giving out scholarships to your alma mater. You who have done well in Hive paying it forward to new people joining and hopefully they will pay it forward as well. That's the optimistic thinking, but like in real life, some will take advantage. That's just human nature I suppose.
Also, I gotta agree with johnhtims on reading the article but not commenting. Commenting has to be meaningful and not just "Good post".....
Thanks,
It is touchy you're right, but I can't honestly see how people can criticise it for the most part - it simply is how Hive works for most (not all) accounts!
You can look at pretty much every regular poster and you'll see votes from the same people OVER AND OVER again - that's patronage.
What might have been touchier would have been bringing up the subject of invest-for-votes or circle jerking.....
But that's for another time!
Hmm....circle jerking.... reminds me of some other NSFW term involving daisies.
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