I dont know anything about this blockchain? Can somebody orient me ...

You might have come across many mainstream social media like Facebook, Twitter, etc where you are just a social user or mere digital laborer, who gets a social platform for free but pays a hidden cost with poor end-user experience, but the website owner makes a huge chunk of money by using the end-user as digital laborer. The centralized system denies every right that an end-user ought to be.

Social media itself is going through a natural evolution as the social users are more concerned about data privacy, end-users rights, etc; as a result, decentralized social platforms are popping up lately. But they are not completely decentralized and/or not an underlying powerful, scalable platform for Web 3.0 applications. If at all they claim to be so, are under Sybil attack with single-entity ownership of the platform who twist the rule of governance to their favors with sock puppet witnesses.

So Hive is a community-driven decentralized social platform that is a powerful, scalable, and perfect fit for Web 3.0 applications. The next course of social media platform is obviously Web 3.0 applications that can not be nurtured with the existing centralized or partially decentralized system/infrastructure. An underlying infrastructure has to be completely decentralized, secure, scalable to become an ecosystem of Web 3.0 applications. So Hive as a Blockchain is that platform from a technical standpoint, its ideological reason being decentralization and governance being community-driven inspissates the idea of a next-generation, truly decentralized social platform that can be economically sustainable, where the end-users will be part of the processes in every form and no one can deny their rights in an ecosystem like Hive.

Hive as Blockchain has 4-year long experience (as it was forked out of Steem Blockchain, in its resolve to remain decentralized, community-driven). The community-driven platform Hive has different types of actors and they are all rewarded for their respective roles. Everything is transparent, powered with Blockchain technology. There is a defined reward pool that rewards content creators, curators, vested token holders, witnesses, Hive DAO, etc.

That said, if you want to earn through this ecosystem, try to evaluate yourself what interests you on a social platform. That way you can optimize your time and effort spent on this platform and earn better. If you want to be a 'just' social user, then also you have space in this platform, you can engage with others depending on what interests you. However, the community always regard genuine & productive engagement(not spam).

In Hive, you can find many communities supported by curators. Each community caters to a specific and/or general category of content. You can also create one or can join one. What interests you, classify you better in a community like Hive.

If you happen to be a professional Blogger/Vlogger, with high-end blogging skills, then you can monetize your content here with PoB(proof-of-brain).

PoB- There is a reward pool that follows an inflationary model to pay the content creators. The inflationary model allows the new tokens to be created to pay the content creators & curators. The user publishes a piece of content and known as an author. There is a voting system that empowers the users of the community to apply their knowledge to determine which one is good content and accordingly determine the value of that content by voting. The voters are called curators. This mechanism, all put together is known as Proof-of-Brain(PoB).

Click here to view the original size of the infographics

If you happen to be an average social user who just loves to engage, then engage productively and you are likely to earn through curation engagement initiatives by the leaders.

If you have financial resources, you can invest in HIVE and power it up for Hive Power, and be a curator, even you can create your own niche to curate a specific category of content. The content creators and the curators share the payout in the ratio of 50/50. The payout matures at the end of 7 days. Alongside, you can also earn some reward as interest for vesting your tokens, as the Blockchain rewards 15% of the reward pool to the vested token holders.

If you happen to be a developer, and you feel that you can make this ecosystem better with additional tools/projects/dapps, then you can do so and earn. You can submit your proposal to Hive DAO(Decentralized Autonomous Organization), where the community votes your proposal and subsequently gets funded.

If you have marketing skills, then also you can bring a proposal to market Hive and submit the proposal in Hive DAO, and again it will be voted by the community and accordingly funded from Hive DAO.

Hive DAO is not just for Developers or Marketers, but for any proposal that is perceived as good for Hive in the community. So if you have some promising idea(s) to make Hive better, then you can bring a proposal & contemplate it with the community.

If you want to run a witness node and want to earn block producer reward, then also you can make money from this ecosystem. The top 21 witnesses are the consensus witnesses in Hive Blockchain and they have a responsibility to run and secure the network. The governance in Hive is decentralized; the witnesses are elected by the users of the Hive community. So if you want to be a witness then reach out to the community users to gain support from them. Tell the people what you are up to and what is your vision and how you can carry forward the legacy of decentralization in Hive.

In a nutshell, Hive rewards all actors for their specific roles, and everything is defined in the blockchain. A dedicated reward pool nourishes all.

Of the total reward pool, 65% of the budget goes to the content creators and curators, 10% for Hive DAO, 10% for witnesses, 15% for vested token holders(HP holders). The inflation rate decreases at the rate of 0.01% for every 250,000 blocks. The current inflation rate is 8.06%.

Some useful guidelines for new users in Hive Blockchain.

(1) Proof-of-Key

If you have the key, you are the owner of the account. In a decentralized account, it is of utmost importance to keep the keys in a safe place, off-line.

Hive blockchain has a hierarchical key system(Owner key, Posting key, Active key, Memo key) that specifies the particular use of the key and also ensure the safety & security of the user.

Posting key is generally used for social transactions such as posting a blog, commenting, editing, reblog a post, upvoting, downvoting, follow, mute, etc. With posting key you can not perform any monetary transaction; so if your private key is compromised, your funds will still remain safe.

Active key is mainly used for monetary transactions such as transfer of fund, power up/down, SBD conversion, exchange of fund in the internal market, etc. The other use of the active key in Hive is witness voting, witness price feed, create a new user account, profile setting, etc. So if your active key is compromised, your funds can be stolen by someone who has access to your active key. So the active key is more sensitive than the private key.

Both active key and private key can be changed by the Owner key. The owner key is the most sensitive key and should not be used in general for interaction with different dapps in Hive blockchain, rather the owner key should be securely stored offline.

Memo key can be used for sending an encrypted memo to another user.

(2) Hive Block Explorer

A Hive user can check all activities in Hiveblocks.com. In Hive Block explorer, you can check each operation/activity that is recorded in Hive Blockchain.

If you want to check each operation/activity of your account, the go to Hiveblocks.com/@username. Replace the username with your Hive username.

I have specifically said operation/activities, as it is not just about monetary transactions in Hive Blockchain, rather all types of activities are recorded.

If you want to know more details about the consensus state, inflation rate and other additional info on Hive Blockchain, then you can visit Hive-db.com

(3) Rewards

PoB Reward pool- 65% of the total reward pool
Author: Curator- 50:50
Payout Window- 7 days
Reverse Auction- 5 mins
Reward Curve- Convergent Linear Reward

_{(Reverse Auction- There is a linear discount on curation rewards from 100% to 0% over the voting time window of 5 mins.)}

(4) Subscribe to a community and make a new post

Go to: https://hive.blog/trending
Click on any of the community showing on the list of the "Trending communities" or click on "Explore communities".
Click on "Subscribe".
Make a new post by clicking on "New Post".