It's also about your ability to shine a spotlight on quality content. To amplify messages you want heard and to reward authors/commenters you'd like to encourage. I think of each Hive as a credibility token. You earned it by being credible (or you bought it from someone who earned it by being credible), and you use those credibility tokens to award others you find credible. It's a great system, really; we just need more people to recognise that.