It's an interesting breakdown. It has certainly been a gravy train for some but also we have to consider it has been over 9 years as well.
I do like that backups get a shot at producing blocks. That is one thing I don't like about the Avalon chain or the EOSIO implementations. No blocks are given to backups.
That is true. Here is what various Hive witnesses earned in September:
Certainly a profitable endeavor for that top 20. It's always interesting to see where the price would rest based on how much it costs to maintain the network compared to the POW chains.
As we all know the price going to $1 changes the dynamic a lot from those running nodes to the activity in the whole ecosystem. That makes it more viable for top 20 node operators to be fulltime without additional proposal support. In my opinion there needs to be massive action and deployment of the HIVE Funds or the price isn't going to catch much sun even in this bull market with BTC and BSC hitting all time highs.
The writing is on the wall though. The funds won't be utilized and everyone will clinch up and the price probably won't do great especially when the bear market comes.
A similar thing happened to Telos. Amazing tech but the price had gotten destroyed.
https://www.coingecko.com/en/coins/telos