Weighing in on the topical discussion

So we've seen a few pronounced hiveans talk about the differences between those that power up and hold their rewards, and those that don't and exit with the hive, money in pocket.

The topic being that we shouldn't vote those that spend more than they take out. The idea behind this is that it is net negative for hive if someone takes out more than they earn.

It's a good theory, one that may work, perhaps. I don't know? It's certainly been played out in the real world, that's for sure. Those that stack and earn, win.

The reward pool has long been a topic of discussion, and it's been quite a back and forth over these long 8 years I've been here. Quite a contentious one. One that's been argued from time in memoriam.

So here are my thoughts on the topic, and I will say that right now as hive stands it will probably remain a contentious topic for quite some time because of the way we exist and what we have here currently, but anyway. Here goes:

A healthy economy is one that both buys and sells. If you look at Bitcoin, or any of the other top 20 tokens when there's a upwards momentum gathered, there's always a recession afterwards. This is natural, this is the universal laws of nature taking control and something that none of us will ever be able to artificially manipulate.

Whenever there's a rush to have more of something (anything), the value goes up. That means two things will happen. Those that have will either want to keep it or sell some (or all of it), and those that want to have will buy it (from those that are selling) - this can be anything, my mum's knickers if that's the in-thing. Regardless,

Hive is in quite an interesting position. We're realistically one of the only tokens that requires a lengthy amount of time at the PC if you want to be part of the mining system. Sure, I mean you can buy a load of stake and power it up, and you can mine with minimal effort, but for those that want to author then there's a certain amount of time involved. Far more than any other chain. Bar initial set up it's realistically set and forget. Minimal time. Minimal effort.

But for hive not the case.

If you want to be an author especially if you're just starting out then it takes a considerable amount of time to sit here. Then learn to write in English even if English isn't your thing. If you're not a good typist or suck at writing, then boom, to pump out a half decent post it's going to take you a good couple of hours.

So in the real world, Time = Money. I know if I sat here for a lengthy amount of time I'd probably want paid for it too.

So the problem we have on hive is that we have quite a few people on here that view their time as money, which is fine, I mean I view my time as money too. But now you see, we have the problem with the people doing this every day and viewing the system as their job. And they're going to want paid to pay their bills / food etc.

Is this a problem? I'm not too sure, I mean some would say fine, yes, others would say absolutely not. I mean it's up to the onlooker.

I'm not too sure. We also really run the risk of negating the small wins for the poorer hiveans. I don't want to be involved in that. But again, freedom of choice is a thing, and why I love hive. So I'll still be helping the little guy.

Personally? I think on the whole, it's not a huge deal the small takers. I mean me for example, in the last three years I must have spent about $50,000 of my own money buying hive and splinterlands stuff on here and on hive-engine. I'm sure there's quite a few of us that when you add up all the buying, it dwarves the small takers.

The problem is when say maybe blocktrades decides to cash out 2 Million or something crazy like that. Then we have a problem. But then again, it's his money, who's to say he can't? Arguments for and against on both sides.

I've never agreed with telling people what they should do with their own money. My dad worked in Russia behind the iron curtain and I'd hear stories about too many people trying to control what people did with their time, money and family, so I'd be arguing for blocktrades to be able to cash out, even if it was going to destroy me lol. I do hate my morals and principles sometimes lol.

All in all this same discussion, the one we've been having for years and years will rage on for as long as we sit here leaking users and not building anything, or buying into what's being built on here.

The real question we should be asking ourselves is this.

How do we get more users?

More users bring more money, more money pushes our chain up in price. Then more people make money. When people make money (or see opportunity) they build new stuff. New stuff attracts more people and the cycle continues. Demand skyrockets, and the rest is history.

I keep testing retail and they seem quite allergic to crypto still, it's hard to make any waves in non-crypto. They still have a bad taste in their mouth from last bear. But this bull should bring a tasty wave of new and excited people to taste some hive.

But look at what's on hive-engine, invest a little, splurge a little. I mean we (brofund etc) are fine, but there are projects that don't get any DHF funding there that are building regardless. @cryptoshots.nft is one small example. Imagine what they would do and the new users they would attract with a small marketing budget? There's plenty of projects down here working hard but on a shoestring.

I'm not saying that we need to go all out and invest in everything built on hive's second layer, but games like splinterlands, and anything that brings in people to hive, is a winner in my opinion. For instance when I bought my chaos legion deck I spent thousands and thousands of hive.

Personally I think the saving grace of hive will not be down to stopping people from exiting their rewards, but the extra users hive attracts with the more projects that are built off the back of hive. @themarkymark proved that last time around when he built hive punks in a weekend, earned 200k hive and tipped hive price out at $3 per hive.

Does everyone need to build? No of course not. The beauty of hive is that we have many many ways to earn - and proof of brain is awesome. A bustling hive would be great to get info out. Imagine having an audience of 10,000 eager community members? Hive would be invaluable for that with the blogging aspect.

Anyway,

I digress. Just wanted to throw something out there and weigh in on the discussion.