wow this is great! It's amazing to see the idea of "likes" being picked up :))
I made a post 2 years ago with exactly this idea as well and would be interested on your opinion on the article :)
https://peakd.com/hive-102930/@tobetada/introducing-a-like-button-to-hive
What I am suggesting is a "like" button for Hive.
Yes - it's that simple. Adding a "like" button (or whatever you want to call it) on top of the upvote mechanism would be a way to make posts more visible. Why does visibility matter? As valuable content (which might also include "low quality posts" such as selfies, memes or AMAs etc.) is often not seen by the community due to the failure of PoB or users simply not wanting to reward such content it is a simple way to give (all) users a chance of getting noticed. This of course would result in other users seeing these posts who could therefore decide to "upvote" such content, thereby making such posts also profitable.
However, I would argue that it is not even always about profitability... social media has shown that what people often want is just attention... That in itself can already by satisfying for some users. Attention, however, is something that is much more easily gained through "likes" and not necessarily by "upvotes". If Hive wants to truely become competitive in the social media landscape (and not just remain a niche) the current system has to change.
For the implementation of this idea I think it is crucial to keep the current reward system which is distributed with "upvotes", but also have a "like" mechanism which resembles the one found on other social media sites. We know that the former system is flawed, but obviously Hive wouldn't be Hive without a global reward pool (a fundamental which I think shouldn't be discarded too quickly). So introducing a "like" mechanism would build on this system rather than completely change it.
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We have similar conclusions as yourself and set about sidestepping these issues with the least amount of friction possible right from the beginning. The main driver was to enable pure participation with an experience that is on par with web 2.0 but on web 3.0 rails. If the experience is at least as good, or similar, then posting for the sake of financial motives won't pollute the network with a lot of perceived low value posts all seeking to be rewarded with the reward pool. They can just post "for the likes" - to some (perhaps many), that could be just as, or even more rewarding than making a couple of dollars.
again, thank you for realizing this :) I didn't have the skills to do it. I am really excited how this will play out. I think in general it is a good idea to combine web 2 and web 3 as many things don't belong on the blockchain (like spammy comments, chat etc.)