I've written about this a few times. I actually think you're describing the symptoms, not the disease. The real problem is the incentive structure. Change the incentives and the behavior changes with it. If you're interested, I explain why in The Great DHF Debate of 2026: Chasing the Code Instead of the Drama and a couple of my older Hive analysis posts.
Some Links:
https://hive.blog/hive/@muhshrooms/on-chain-governance-is-a-bad-bitch
https://ecency.com/@muhshrooms/here-we-go-again
On another note, personally, I've stopped treating Hive and Blurt as places to make money. I use them as a permanent public record of my work while building opportunities elsewhere. Ironically, that approach ended up getting the attention of an editor who now pays me far more per article than Hive ever has.
Thank you very much for your comment, your opinion and above all the links to your posts.
Yeah, I had already been lucky enough to read them all back in the day. And although none of them specifically address the cause of the decline in content quality on Hive... well, except perhaps in the last one in the section that describes the Stakeus Maximus in the Day 93, I'm afraid I still don't know what you think is the main cause of the decline in content quality on our platform.
And yes, I believe that in my post I have not only described the symptoms but also the disease. But it's possible you might not have noticed it yet if you didn't click on all the links throughout the post and watched in its entirety all the three videos that this post contains. A thing for which I apologize. Since my articles generally always require of an extra effort to be fully understood. An old habit of mine that I haven't been able to avoid yet, when it comes to differentiating between readers interested in my content and those who are not.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply.
You're right, I didn't watch the videos. Not because I wasn't interested, but because my time and mobile data are both very limited. I was responding to the written post itself.
To answer your question directly, I think the main cause is the incentive structure.
The behaviors you mention: poor curation, nepotism, curation trails, whales not voting, rewarding friends over discovering new authors, etc., are real. Where we differ is that I see those as consequences rather than the root cause. People adapt to incentives. Economics tells us what behaviors are rewarded. Psychology tells us people gradually internalize those rewards. Someone who begins writing because they enjoy writing can eventually find themselves asking, "What is most likely to get rewarded?" instead of, "What do I actually want to write?" Once enough people make that shift, the overall quality of content begins to change. Usually to the detriment of quality. That's why I think changing the incentives changes the behavior.
I also don't think Hive or Blurt should be viewed as places where one expects to earn a living. I use both as permanent public records of my work while building opportunities elsewhere. Ironically, taking that approach ended up getting the attention of an editor who offered to pay me for articles at a rate far beyond what Hive has ever paid me. In hindsight, that has been a much healthier way for me to think about these platforms.
As for your point that your argument is developed further in the videos, that's fair. I simply haven't had the opportunity to watch them yet. If your position there is closer to what I've described above, then we may actually agree more than I initially thought.