I was thinking today about the second author reward window, currently set for 30 days after the initial ~24 hour author reward window. I'm proud of my last post describing how we often react to disagreement (Are You Ignorant, Immoral, or Stupid?) and was surprised to see the post value jump from $24.29 to $44.69 after the initial payout. Turns out I got a vote from 
This isn't the first time I've had this pleasant surprise. A couple months ago I told my miner story about melting 100 bitcoin which had an initial payout of 25.593 SBD. Eventually the total payout became 155.798 SBD thanks to a vote from 
How many whales (or any of us, for that matter) vote up "old" content beyond the first payout window? Should it happen more often or is it a waste of value which should be used on fresh, new content?
I try to treat every reward like a gift (hurray Christmas in July!), but this last time I caught myself thinking something slightly different. I felt something close to vindication. "Oh, cool! Someone recognized the true value of this post!"
I fell for the trap.
Value is subjective and very often great content gets missed while other content thought of as "great" really isn't based on the subjective opinions of the whales voting at the time.
I'm happy with my post because I think it can be really valuable to our community. I had hoped it might trend to get more reads, but I didn't go so far as to promote it. I was happy with the initial rewards (or any rewards, for that matter), but the second pending reward it has now kind of reminded me, "Yeah, this really was a valuable post." It made me wonder, did I just get a second chance door prize because I missed out on the initial real deal for one reason or another?
It also made me wonder, should I be voting on more "second chance" content after the initial payout? Could that be even more encouraging for authors to know, "Yes, this post was so good someone used their voting power to communicate that to you, with no thought about curation rewards for themselves." I do know when I hid the $$$ on Steemit.com for 24 hours, I voted for all kinds of content, regardless of the payout dates. I also may have "wasted" my voting power in terms of not having much voting power left to reward new authors.
It's interesting to me how much I think about this stuff, given my vote is only now worth a few pennies. Do the whales think about this stuff even more?
What do you think about the second chance payout? Do you often vote on content after the first payout window? Are you often rewarded by the second payout window?
Steem On!
