Clearly people found value in it.
That's not the conclusion you want to make, there's plenty of stuff that gets random upvotes some times and sets off a chain reaction of getting to trending without anyone really have read it. I mean come on look at traf's and haejin's+rancho's votes the past year, they had a literally post using that exhaust dapp saying how much they ran that day in one sentence sit at $130 on trending.
Just cause some people manage to get on those autovotes and trails (similar to lucy I imagine), then farm them out posting some garbage daily and someone comes in disagreeing with some of those rewards or someone does that + gets personal cause of something OP may have said that doesn't mean that Hive is flawed just cause that author can't get his free rewards from auto votes without much thought.
Do you ever wonder how most of the authors that cry about "reward censorship" never received any rewards in the form of tips/subscriptions? There's recurring payments now but it is quite literally not used at all. You'd think if some whales that vote them up would be that interested to read their content they'd pay them to create it if the post rewards get downvoted, let alone maybe drop them a comment now and then.
Why not make the "trending page" based on unique page views then?
Don't people like haejin+rancho have the right (based on their stake) to upvote whatever trash they wish?
What exactly is the "moral theory" against "self-voting"?
You don't think those could be faked too?
Sure they can similar to how people can downvote whatever trash they wish.
Depends who you ask I bet, if your self-vote is big but also just a small percentage of all the upvotes your posts usually get then it's kind of frowned upon in my eyes. Along with if you have a big self-vote and at the same time the content you produce is low effort.
Can't you filter by something like "only count unique page views by logged in HIVE accounts with more than 100 HIVE-POWER" or something like that?
This doesn't sound like an "unsolvable problem".
I just don't understand what the "moral theory" is supposed to be here.
Why would you "frown upon" a large self-vote?
It could be used better than already voting on your posts that may get $50-100 per post? Look at @theycallmedan, if he'd self-vote it would feel a bit strange cause he doesn't need it, at the same time if he posted a meme or a photo with a couple words and self-voted it where his 20-40$ vote was 90% of the rewards it would be a disservice to everyone else to not downvote it a bit, no?
Disagreeing on how much reward any specific post "deserves" seems strange.
For example, if a street-musician gets a $100 tip, and they seem to be making less effort than the other street-musicians,
Does that alone give me the right to scoop that tip out of their hat and redistribute that money to the other street-musicians?
NO.
That money is not mine, and I have no right to say that street-musician doesn't "deserve" that large tip.
Also, if the street-musician put their own $100 bill into their own hat, that still wouldn't give me the right to take it out of their hat and redistribute it to the other street-musicians.
I know people like to say "it dilutes the reward pool".
But the same exact argument applies to real-life-CASH-MONEY-DOLLARS as well.
Whenever someone spends a large amount of money, they are reducing the value of your money.
If everyone stops spending, your savings actually increase in "purchasing power".
Why are you assuming a tip is the same as allocation of the reward pool?
You purchase "reward pool" shares by staking your HIVE.
This translates into your "vote power".
It's basically a dividend.
You can choose to share this dividend with random performers who compete for your upvote.
Or, you can choose to upvote yourself.
Also for the record. I didn't follow anyone to POB. I remember it being talked about possibly being created way back in the early days of #informationwar discord. Then I left.
I came back and kept seeing posts I liked from there. I tried posting there and people liked it and gave me some good discussion. That is why I am there.
@lucylin is someone I've crossed proverbial mental swords with going back to the steemit days. We often disagree on some point or another. We use very different approaches in how we communicate. Yet we also kind of know how each other do things and I'd like to think we formed a mutual respect.
One thing we both are is heavily against censorship.
Do I think his posts are sometimes abrasive and completely not how I'd do it?
Yes.
Other times I find myself chuckling or laughing my ass off.
So while I don't always like what he says. I'll fight for his right to say it.
If I really feel strongly against something he says he knows I'll speak up. We'll likely start swinging swords again and eventually will nod, shake hands, and return to our corners. :)
At least that is my mental imagery there.
With that said. There are also many areas he and I agree.
I don't think many have wanted to downvote his rewards based on just criticism about Hive or the way thinks work here. I.e. I don't think it was meant as censorship of visibility. I haven't engaged with him much but seeing how he instantly goes for the offensive and waving some kind of "I'm more intellectual than most of you" wand around I can see why people would want to downvote him for the fun of it too. I have read posts from him in the past so he already was in my "ah it's that fucking guy" memory folder and that was mostly from random people linking me to his stuff with a message of "check this idiot out".
Anyway, I'm glad he found a place where people reward him for the way he is, I guess. Though I do think PoB is just trying to pick some people bigger Hive stakeholders don't like just for marketing effect, can't wait to see Kingscrown trending there next I guess.