"... the system we have now is a lot better than most people think it is."
You are fully correct, but only in financial terms. Curation isn't essentially a financial operation, or it wasn't until our blockchain made it that.
Speech is far too valuable to be relegated to a financial manipulation mechanism.
I much prefer your suggestion of savings accounts, and I actually think that change is existentially important to Hive. The more censorship impacts IRL, the more disruption allowing our speech to be a vector of profiteering harms Hive by reducing it's ability to mitigate censorship.
That may be existentially important IRL, and not just to Hive itself.
Regarding taxes, I don't think tokens are, as you point out, taxable themselves, in the same way that stock certificates or gold bars aren't. It's when you sell them for dollars that you have realized income or gain, and a taxable event occurs.
For God's sake don't consider that investment or tax advice. I'm a notorious pauper without any recommendation of my opinions regarding such matters, and only a fool or floridly insane person would base their tax filings on anything I wrote. That being said, I think that's how the IRS treats cryptos. Do correct me if I'm wrong.
I note the IRS doesn't tax Green Stamps, or didn't when they were extant, nor grocery coupons, air miles, or the like. Seems similar in effect to me.
Thanks!