Let me start off by saying that money is absolutely one of, if not the biggest, factors that pulled me into this platform. The fact I can get paid to exercise my hobby of blogging and honing my english skills, as well as applied critical thinking to various financial subjects has been a BLAST!
I know, I know. That sounds wholly greedy. But that's the theme around here! I believe the folks over at LeoFinance have struck such a golden balance between plentifully rewarding authors for creating quality posts, and incentivizing the community with rewards by upvoting other people's content. If you were early enough to upvote a post that would eventually go viral, then you get rewarded handsomely for it, prompting everyone to read the content and adjudicate whether it's worth the time of anyone else. Essentially, everybody in this ecosystem is always involved in the earning process.
Sounds great, right?
Almost.
Just as Bitcoin heads towards a trend of centralization, so too does the audience of LeoFinance flock towards the central figures of the community, the "vital few"-- I'm talking people like @scaredycatguide and @trumpman, people whose measly posts composed of as little as 2 paragraphs and an image, even broken grammar and missing words, would accrue them more upvotes and, more importantly, money than a minimum wage worker at McDonalds in such a fraction of the time.
Despite this, I remain grateful. Grateful for what the HIVE blockchain has provided to everyone on this platform. But a small part of me tells me that it's not worth the time investment. Something keeps yelling at me that the platform has plateaued in performance, that people like the aforementioned are the real winners making the big bucks with such little effort, and everyone else is an underdog feeding off the scraps. Curator's picks work towards relieving this schism, but I can't help that they too are part of the flock.
Don't contour this as me crying for attention, because I'm fully aware I'm of the underdogs, and I understand my voice is by no means going to be heard. This is, however, a call to action to whom it matters. The plane is not even, and curator's picks do jackshit towards evening it out.
Then, you might think, if Curator's picks start featuring posts from amateurs, then the whole page would be overrun with garbage posts.
As if those people I mentioned and more don't already dish out garbage posts? Yet still get paid for it fully? Hell, just look at this and tell me it brings anything of value to the table.
I realize as I type this out that this sounds like a rant more than anything. This'll probably get my reputation points tanked to 0. Anyhow, If you you're still reading, then you have my sincerest thanks for listening. I also realize this won't go anywhere, given how rigid the walls of the echochamber are.