https://steemit.com/steemit/@calamus056/curation-rewards-explained-in-great-detail
It's complicated. Curation rewards being early on upvoting, but later in time. Its to try to discourage people from trying to be first on a whalepost that will obviously get upvotes while making it so can't turn around and just jump on the bandwagon.
You're best bet is if you read/view content you like, upvote it. If you are early, more of "your" share goes to the content creator. If you are late, more of "your" share goes to the content creator. Then every now and then you'll find a post that didnt get early love but goes onto get some. Then you will get your full reward, as you actually helped curate.
tl;dr Its not worth gaming. Upvote what you like.
Thank you. This is extremely helpful. I can't really be bothered gaming the system... I just want to give credit where credit is due, and I'd prefer to not have to time it. The advice I've gotten from this whole post and conversation is :
1.) Upvote the quality comments people leave on your blog.
2.) Don't worry about the timing of it.
3.) Be rad.
That works for me.