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It's not about culture. It is about people who have got their higher stake to give you bigger upvote. If someone give you an upvote, someone have to pay for it, mostly investors. Nothing is for free and from thin air.

Inflation is how votes get their value, not investors. Everything is about culture. It's how boundaries are set. Define quality and spam and users will do what brings the votes. Culture is also how we define the personality of platforms

Who bring value of the tokens then? investors who bought them and then staked them so you can get your desired $4. It is not coming from the sky, someone have to pay for it. Thin air stuff only happens at FED :)

1 hive/leo is 1 hive/leo no matter the usd value at any given time. There's a set amount of hive/hbd created as inflation created each day no matter how much the coins are worth in exchange.

you are kinda both right, but for inflation to be distributed by votes, someone has to stake that hive/leo. more people staking, more people get it, because i don't expect Khal to vote on every thread ever written.

Right, but you don't need to buy it to earn it to be staked. You just need buyers to increase its usd/fiat value. Either way, when shit blogs earn $150+, $4 for a quality original thread shouldn't be a big deal.