Strategy and ethics of strategy

Hi everyone,
this is going to be a long post and if anyone is offended, please turn on the brain because I don't intend to offend anyone.
Rather I'm posing ethical questions in support of Hive blog.

I've only been "in" for a short time, and I'm sure these questions may have already come up in creating the blogging platform.

However, I'll try to lay out my thoughts, from what is my experience so far, from what are my sensitivities to the topic, and from the vision I have as a "content creator".

Anyone who writes a blog is a content creator "of something"... But there's a difference to review a trip or a movie, where there is an exposure of oneself in a certain way, in everyday life, and get a comment that shows agreement or disagreement...
And then another thing is to create from scratch and invent material to get attention and dialogue, to get shared or sharable growth between people with the same interests and (here comes the beauty of the internet) between totally unrelated people who interact by adding "outside" considerations, in that sphere of interest. Manual curation, someone can say.

I hope I've written a title to attract interest because the strategy for gain is not contemplated here, but the strategy is the main concept about the problem we should talk about.
I don't give attention to votes, because this post will talk about a possible scenario that could happen with strategies.
But I know just as well that the interaction itself brings monetization to those who vote as well.
That's the Hive's system and in here we are.
However, use your brains. I am not the wolf in lamb's clothing.

--- ok let's start.

This post was born after a short chat on The Terminal's Discord (discord.gg/XZGPGpzdiscord.gg/XZGPGpz), thanks to @thekittygirl 's suggestion, because honestly, it needed a better place than my blog, which is more dedicated to content production.

Now and then, and even lately I intervened on such a post, we try to figure out together what can be the future of the blog platform in Hive and how to increase the number of users (and their activity).

Everything has life if there is an activity... and here, scattered, without real cataloging (if not just using tags often dispersive) we see users who have not posted for a year, communities with 2 registered users ... "dead" accounts, which is natural that there exist but somehow "pollute" the usability of the platform.

Users can come back at any moment and vote, without even reading the content of the blog.
And in doing so earn their share from the system.
It's legal.
Maybe it's a strategy. No time to write, no time to create.
They make little money, but they do the bare minimum, it's free anyway.
I highlighted this in part just today @brittandjosie here (https://peakd.com/hive-174578/@brittandjosie/help-and-the-fact-that-some-people-just-dont-get-it-and-live-a-fraudelous-hive-lifehttps://peakd.com/hive-174578/@brittandjosie/help-and-the-fact-that-some-people-just-dont-get-it-and-live-a-fraudelous-hive-life)

There's an underlying problem...
This is a community of bloggers.

The very fact that "strategies" exist is a problem.

We witness posts every week or so regarding how to grow better on the platform. Helpful tips for newcomers.
And at the same time, we lament a lack of users.
There are low numbers because somehow it is the strategy itself that can move "the money" (the mechanism) but which can limit to the point of "killing" the very nature of the blog (the soul).

Imagine that there is no more beautiful content (it doesn't matter if you call it high quality or low quality, it's often subjective)...

Imagine only grainy photos... drawings done badly, poems written with feet...

The mechanism would work the same.
Just vote within 7 days.

As already explained for the recent HardFork 25 (which I still do not know why it is the 25th..or why it is called HardFork after the original one split from Steem.. but that's another matter)...Is it not possible to call them "updates"?

All these "weird" terminologies drive the users away. Annotation.

I was saying...
the mechanism would work the same.

Today, for example, because of that issue of posts expiring, I received many "likes" to a recent post of mine in a newborn art community.
Random users.
It seems clear that voting is affected by payment, rather than real attention in a community that sees 4 registered members in total.

Here goes.
If you are a photographer and you show a beautiful photo, created with a lot of patience and dedication, the 3000 votes you take will likely be due to a great interest in the product you show.

But that may not be the case either. Just click on @ecency's little blue arrow or @peakd's heart...and it's done.
Automatic vote. Just mechanism. No soul.
MONEY MONEY MONEY!!!

Where is the difference, since the amount of monetization is the same?

It lies in the fact that the content creator, no longer has "soul" in those votes.
He doesn't know if people liked the photo or if the photo sucks for everyone.

That, in a blogging platform, made by people, is a problem.

Did people like my introduction to that community that much? Or did it only get votes because the earnings window is ending?

You know what?
WHO CARES!!!
You earn, I earn...happy everyone.

Mistake. The platform itself dies.

Decentralization is a great thing... but I'm wondering if there shouldn't be an underlying organization to safeguard the blog platform (and maybe more but I don't currently know).

Example I brought up in TheTerminal chat (discord.gg/XZGPGpzdiscord.gg/XZGPGpz).
Do you want more users? Do you want more movement?

Instead of pointing out how to write a blog and on the rules that are valid (only for some and not for all, since the sensitivities inside a worldwide platform, with different cultures of many countries, receive and process information (input) differently)...

You call the European representative of Nike... and you say to him
"why don't you start a blog in Hive? you'll make money".

You would rightly think he would laugh.
What do you want Nike to do with $50 monetized for a post?
How would such an account be looked at by other users?
In a world of personal blogs?

Well...
For one thing, he doesn't care about "that money", he cares about gaining more audience in a different channel.
On Facebook and Twitter he already has his own space...

Hive is also free and with no "ads".

Ok. Imagine now that Nike enters (and the interest in other brands begins as well)...

There would be posts every day ... every other day ... to collect votes and comments...
Nike, which doesn't need HBD, would still gain a lot of attention and HBDs...
OH WAIT!!!
And users too (WOW! THIS IS AWESOME!).

Every day, big Brands will present their products and links to their shop...
Users will consume their POWER HP to vote and earn from posts that are certainly attractive.

The mechanism would work... great emphasis for HIVE, the great emphasis for the blog on HIVE... higher ratings and interest... and more users.

But Nike (still... it's an example for a brand name)... we all know it.
It would make beautiful posts, with beautiful titles... Beautifully written posts (but would complain about the interface being too poor to create good graphics).
They would probably get the attention of many.
Anyone can register in Hive and have a blog...
Even "Nike"...
With its whole strategy.

Here... I was wondering...
All these strategies...all these ratings...how much interest is there in the content?
If you advertise a product, are you advising me because it's a good product or do you just want my money?
If you give me advice, that advice remains, but are you giving it to me from the heart or with the strategy of maximizing my vote?

WHO CARES, you'll say. Everyone gains from it anyway!

But when everyone (or many) will consume the daily HP to have interaction with the posts of the big Brands...
The humanity of small bloggers, with their beautiful or ugly photos, but more real, with a "soul", what support could they still get from other users?

And if we assume that even the small ones will stop publishing content, because after all, they would not earn anything anymore...
It's enough to vote for the big Brands to keep earning...

This would still be a "wonderful" decentralized space where everyone can have his say, where the content is protected, without a master who controls the account ...?

Or will it just be an automated "pinterest"?

That's where curators and communities like OCD would be more important in supporting small bloggers...
But let's be clear... if 3Speak (for which the logo is TO BE CHANGED because that stuff is not humanly "readable" and the color ensemble sucks) has a few hundred visitors a day and writing a post is a nightmare with those poor tools...

OCD's work to promote 3Speak becomes an impossible task. And people will still prefer Youtube to post videos.

But maybe I worry too much... after all... it would be enough that famous Brands would enter the scene...and the whole movement will be "saved".

What do you think? Has a potentially "deleterious" scenario like this already been hypothesized?

Is it the case to foresee further norms, rules, reorganization of "dead/inactive" communities, cleaning up misleading tag lists...
create new preference/selection commands...

I don't know... I ask myself questions and I ask them to you, here.
Thanks for your attention