I 100% believe this project means no harm. It's just a very delicate balancing act. What started with just one turned into several front ends that all inherited one of the platform's biggest blunders. When you see onboarding attempts for Hive or a new tribe, what are they seeking? Content creators, or content consumers? Because they push to only attract creators, the creators outnumber consumers, and because of that, what's being created more often than not goes unnoticed. They show up, they leave. No market; no consumers. Revolving door, everyone scratching their heads, wondering what's wrong...
Well, it's very simple. Content is nothing without consumers. Do even more to eliminate consumers and even less to attract them, kinda like what we're doing here, and yes, of course, we'll be running into problems.
Consumers, these days, spend a lot of their own money on content online. This platform offers them a better deal than some of the largest corporations on the planet, straight out the box. We squander that potential, tell nobody, and pay people to look away? That just seems a bit off to me.
As a first step, @brofi has begun rewarding manually selected comments on posts, to help encourage consumers who also choose to comment. I hunt through trending every now and then anyways, and whenever I see a good comment I give it a 1% from brofi.
We will try and get a few trusted comment hunters available to diversify the definition of a "good comment", as well as a broader selection of content searched through (and consumed).
These are just the first steps and will come up with more in the future.
Honestly. At this moment I just appreciate the fact you took my concerns seriously and will take steps to offset some of the imbalance things like this can create. When I brought it up years ago with the vote sellers, to put it plainly, I was treated like a lesser human. At least you're showing signs you'd prefer things don't get out of hand.
We got the market cornered on 'curation reward' (I prefer to call it consumer reward but it doesn't matter). Google it, that leads to us (unfortunately it leads to two outdated steemit posts I feel like hijacking with a comment and placing a link to this place then voting to the top of their comment section so consumers can see). We're literally one of the only places on the planet someone can 'get paid to be entertained or informed'. For most people here it doesn't even register how big of a deal that is, how disruptive it can be, or anything. I'm convinced if we managed to attract those billions of people, they'd be encouraged to automate everything, turn around, and leave forever. So stupid. If you ask any one of these talented artists/entertainers/creators around here familiar with this industry what they think of this, you won't get an answer, because most leave. Many tried to explain but the crypto crowd has tokens in their ears and can't hear a damn thing. Drooling over pennies trickling in throughout the year LOL! Arts/entertainment/information generates billions annually with no signs of slowing down and it's all consumer driven. The capable come here knowing full well they can make money for everyone but get treated like leeches instead.
Without consumers, the true talent leaves. Why does a busker perform at the subway station? Because people. Even they know. Don't you hate it how even operating a service like yours becomes difficult, since finding actual decent instances of quality to reward can be nearly impossible at times...
LOL... Pardon my rant. I come from a good place and mean well.