I want to say upfront that I have more questions than answers on this theme. But it's a start...
And no, I haven't researched this one, to extract some public/scientific wisdom or to appeal to the AI's capacity of synthesis. Just saying what's on my mind right now.
I came to this subject starting from the point of the recent let's call it small movement on Hive regarding the restructuring of voting patterns based on whether authors are net extractors from Hive or believe in the platform (showed through how much of their rewards they keep powered up).
I do believe the sugar and the whip (I know it's called carrot and stick) approach is often effective, at least to a degree.
The problem is, in case of some people, life gives them lots of whips and little sugar, if any. In a way, that's good for them because that toughens them for life. That may be very good for them in the coming decade or two... Much more than for the ones who receive more sugar than whips from life.
To keep on with this metaphor, on Hive the question rises: why should we give sugar to the people who don't give us sugar back? Pretty much a metaphoric translation of what has been discussed recently.
That's a question I don't want to attempt to answer. At least not now.
Generated with Venice.ai.
And finally, I come to the point of this article... Trust. Or lack thereof. Or rather, lack of trust as a way of life. Which can be a powerful protection mechanism, but also a limiter, based on life experiences and / or each ones' life situation.
Lack of trust can lead to a few outcomes where Hive is concerned, in my opinion:
- research+test -> trust -> commit long term (use, invest/build/grow, etc.)
- stay away
- join+interact -> trust -> grow (and potentially extract partially)
- join, use, extract often and a high percentage of earnings
The notions of saving plans or locked coins will not be of interest to someone from the last category, who extracts most of their earnings regularly. That may be because they need all those funds to eat the next day (and in many cases that's true), but I believe in enough cases it's a matter of trust in the long-term, that may not be directed at Hive, but as a general life approach. Because otherwise they could still leave more in, particularly having a significant APR for HBD in savings or a highly probable bull market over the next year or so. Why take out less now, when you can take out more in a year, since you are using it in the real world where you are spending dollars/fiat, not Hive or bitcoin, in most cases?
So, the conclusion I reached after thinking about it was that they don't have trust, they are fearful. I can think of a number of questions that may go through their minds, many of them irrational fears. They would probably feel better once the bull market explodes and everything starts going up, as will all of us.
One good counter-argument to the lack of trust and fears they may have for the long term, is that they have been paid, often many, many times. And no payment has been denied, ever, at least from our side. Because Hive can't deny payments, like... banks. So yeah, that's a really good argument if you think about it... I hope it is a good argument for people who keep extracting almost everything. They can earn even more if they don't do that!