If one is actually engaging in meaningful curation, this implies the other party contributed something.
The connotations of "giving away" suggests one party received something for nothing and in that reasoning lies the fundamental difference in the interpretation.
I mean if it were that way. It would certainly make more sense semantically to call it the donation pool.
I think that is the direction sort of that whaleshares went. Have you seen how things were going over there? It's been ages since I claimed my tip balance.
To simplify this, let's make the proper distinctions between author and curation rewards. For purposes of this discussion, let's focus on the former first.
In the name itself, it is a reward for authorship whoever how we use it has evolved beyond that such was the case w projects such as Utopian, which adds additional utility to that functionality in rewarding off chain development while the DAO was but a glimmer in the whales' eyes.
But, you see, in either case, the reward is not for nothing but to reward some form of activity.