Can You Actually Earn a Living by Blogging on Hive?
This is probably a question that crosses the minds of most hivers when they are introduced to the platform. Of course the answer depends on many things, not least of all the amount it costs to cover your living expenses.
To make it easier, let's just look at the country where Hive has had the most success in finding users - Venezuela.
Salaries in Venezuela
Estimates of a typical salary in Venezuela seem to vary. This Bloomberg article suggests that the minimum wage is now $16 per month. Another source suggests simlarly low salaries with an average of $24 a month, but from discussing with @besto who helped me in researching this, this is a little unrealistically low, and the minimum wage is something that only really affects public sector workers. This source suggests the typical salary in the private sector is approximately $53 per month.
Although both may be a little low when accounting for some food stamp type benefits, and in some cases public sector corruption, going forward I will use $16 per month as 'minimum wage' and $53 as 'typical private sector wage'
Earnings on Hive
In the year 2022, we have had upwards of 5000 users posting and earning rewards under the tag 'spanish', and upon manual review it becomes clear that the vast majority are from Venezuela.
I've done a manual review of the tag 'spanish', and found that among the top earners 70% are from Venezuela, but among authors overall it is likely closer to 90%
The following chart shows a breakdown of earnings by users posting with the tag 'spanish' from January to October this year.
In 10 months, 202 users representing the top 1% earned at least $1158 on Hive from author rewards alone. I estimate about 140 of these are Venezuelan, based on the sampling before. This is 140 Venezuelan Hivers earning double the average private sector salary and 7 times the minimum wage.
The following chart shows earnings over that time on a per post basis.
Half of all users of the 'spanish' tag are earning at least $1.33 per post in author rewards. Based on a $16 minimum wage, earnings from a single post represent 2 days of work. The top 10% are earning at least $5.43 per post, or 3 days work on an average private sector salary.
We can also look at just the most recent full month (October 2022), which represents a relatively low month in a bear market for Hive.
528 users posting to the 'spanish' tag earned at least $16 in Hive author rewards alone. Using the same ratio as before, at least 369 Venezuelans earned as much as the national minimum wage, merely from blogging on Hive. With the same method, at least 250 Venezuelan users earned as much as the average private sector salary ($53 per month). This is approximately the top 9% of earners on the tag.
Conclusion - Yes, Hundreds of People at Least are Earning a Living By Blogging on Hive
This post has only looked at author rewards from full blog posts, it has excluded rewards from comments, rewards from curation and any of the other ways that a person can earn on Hive. Yet it has shown that at least in the country where Hive is most popular, people can and do earn a living by blogging on Hive.
Even for those who are earning less - the median author reward is over $1 and represents 2 days of minimum wage salary in Venezuela. A blog post is unlikely to represent a full days work, let alone two.