The potatoes are back and rebranded to hbd.funder and it's neither good nor bad it just is.
One of the unique parts of Hive that I love is each users' ability to allocate their share of the inflation via their vote. It's perfectly fair if you look at it through the eyes of Hive Power equals influence. In some DPOS systems your stake would give you the opportunity to vote on what projects to do etc. Much like the HDF.
In addition to our influence on proposals, on Hive you have the unique ability to actually directly reward a specific project, user or post, via your vote.
My current vote is approximately $0.35 USD, I get 10 of them a day, meaning my stake gives me the right to allocate about $3.50 USD a day to whatever I want via my votes. If I use less than 10 votes my voting power is wasted, if I use more for enough days, I will run out of voting power. I can power Hive up or down to change my influence. There is a chance if I support something unpopular and it is downvoted that my influence could be nullified. Most days though it isn't.
To me this means I can allocate my votes to that which I find value in. Whether it is someone's post announcing a project I want to support or an Author/Artist's contribution. So can everyone else, with the exact same influence as their stake allows.
It boils down to a simple financial tie-breaker when we disagree on the direction of the platform. Along with your vote, you can use your social influence to try to influence people to support what you find exciting or hateful. Another unique aspect of Hive is the communication platform to discuss ideas. Naming the pool "Reward Pool" does not mean it can only be allocated to Authors.
To those who get frustrated about large account behavior it's a DPOS blockchain project and expecting it to not be about money seems like an unreasonable expectation. The idea being those who have the most to lose make the decisions and either benefit or harm themselves with those choices. For the rest of us the issue becomes how much do you want to invest. Do you think those large stakeholders are making decisions that protect and grow your investment? Invest accordingly.
Now back to the hbd.funder, those who think the benefits are worth it can support and those who don't can downvote it or ignore it. Also you can use your social influence as well in the comment section.
Personally, I would like to see more effort in creating demand than reducing supply, that's my opinion and I will use my votes to support it. I fully respect others doing the same.
Still the idea of there being numerous posts on the trending page is depressing, and the fact that HBD trades on several exchanges, I doubt that the overall impact will be meaningful on "Pegging" HBD.
Now, back to minding my own business and staying out of most of the Hive politics.