Is it Broken?
If it is... fix it.
I am not quite sure if it is broken, but I do appreciate the sentiment that we have here on Proof of Brain in trying to make it better. There are a lot of people who care about this tribe and about keeping the quality way up. These are good things and this sentiment, first and foremost, is what is going to continue to grow this tribe.
We don't need to tweak anything without putting a lot of thought and discussion into it, it is working great. That is my 2 cents. That said, if we come to some consensus moving forward that we can make things better, let's do it.
Rewards split
Content creators are a dime a dozen, literally. Look at the "new" page on Hive.blog or peakd and see for yourself. The beauty about this ecosystem is that some content and their creators deserve to be compensated for their work. We, the stakeholders, get to decide this.
Those that hold stake, determined that their hard work and the rewards or money that came from it, belongs here. It could be paying for a car, a boat, a house or a vacation... but we picked to park our money on this platform. We believe in the community and code and how this ecosystem works in real time enough to put our money here.
Part of being invested in this platform is to be rewarded for it. Proof of Brain is not just about making great content, or reading it. It is an advanced ecosystem of creators, curators and investors.
The creator feels that they have something to say that needs to be heard, and feels that they should be compensated something for it. The curator decides where all of the content should land on the rewards scale. The investor is the third party in this ecosystem. They feel that this ecosystem has potential for growth and pump a bunch of money into it on the hopes of making a good return on their investment. We should not forget about them, for if we do... they will forget about you and put their money elsewhere. This means downward pressure on the market, and soon enough, your token is not worth near as much as it was.
In fact, once a few big players got interested in POB, this is when the price really started to climb. If the investor gets snubbed out of the equation, where does that leave to token price at? They list their stake on the market and downward pressure can be hard to fight off. I don't have enough liquid hive to buy a mega-whales share of POB unless the market crashes hard.
The investor
Many investors feel that manually curating is their thing. This is protecting their investment. They get to ensure that the quality of the trending page is top notch. This is the money page. A good trending page means new readers, new writers and new investors... and growth!
I invested a lot of time on this platform. I have written a lot directly about its future and how to grow it. I have been involved in discussions, not as much lately due to my workload off the blockchain, and was another statistic on the active user page. My investment hasn't been monetary, but I could have sold all of my rewards if I chose to. Therefore, I am an investor.
The content creator
I might have spoken a little harshly about content creators earlier. They may be a dime a dozen, but the good ones are worth a lot more. This is why there are investors. The reward the good content creators as they are protecting the investors interest. If there is good content, and the creators of said content are rewarded well, they will make more. They will get subscribers. This will bring readers, curators, investors... growth!
It is fairly simple. Write good content, get rewarded for it. That being said, it is easy for content creators to feel that they deserve more, after all, they are doing most of the work, right?
I tend to write a post or three a week. I tried to do more, and sometimes I can, but I am currently overworked and do not have the time to do too much. Each post I write, takes between 20 minutes to an hour, and some forethought and planning before I sit down. Let's call it 2 hours total. This leads me to...
The Curator
The curator has a tough job. Read. Read. Read. Read some more. Decide who gets how much of a vote. It is a thankless job, and that is why they get a share in the rewards. To read ten good articles a day, you might need to look at 30. This takes a good amount of time. More than the 2 - 6 hours per week that I spend creating content. Many curators are building their stake by curating, getting their share of the vote for their share of the work.
Without the curator, there is no reason for the creator... of course, without any investment, the curation would not reward the author enough to keep them around. All 3 need to be together for this to work.
My Side of the Debate
Right now, curators get 50% of the rewards. Content creators get the other 50%. I think that this is really fair. I don't do as much curation as I don't have the time, and I know that it takes a lot of effort. I feel like I am more of a writer and so I tend to get my say in on posts.
There is talk of changing the ratio. 75/25. 67/33... all in favour of content creators. The curator, is often also the investor. They protect their investment by voting for the good content. They also grow their stake by doing the work. If the curation rewards were dropped down, I am not sure if the investment interest would be as strong. The price would go down, as would the payouts... not growth.
Take this argument seriously. I am a content creator. 85% of my stake is from author rewards. I would benefit greatly from the structure of the payout changing. I think that it would be a mistake.
I welcome your opinion. I read 
Auto-voting
As an investor who does not have time to curate, I lent my vote to 2 very good curators who have the best interest in Proof of Brain in mind. 
I see nothing wrong with this. I feel like I am helping grow this platform by providing more incentive for content creators to stick around.
Trails like the 2 that I am involved in, provide investors with a reason to stick around. This is important. This is not only about creators and curators. I do not have time to curate daily. I do what I can, but I have more vote power to share. I also like growing my stake.
Perhaps I will delegate a small amount of POB power to
He obviously cares for POB and this is great. I think there is a big difference between good curation trails with the good of the platform as the main goal and trails such as Back scratcher (anyone remember that one?... It was a covert vote for vote trail).
He also mentioned splinterlands.
"I dare say more projects can learn from Splinterlands' success. You will profit a bit if you simply spend $10k in boosters and let it sit for 2 years, but you will profit so much more if you are active in one way or another in the game. How many non-bot players do you guys think Splinterlands would have if it allowed card owners to earn just as much by being 100% passive?"
The problem with this argument is that the biggest gainers in the game, were the biggest investors who ran bot accounts. They did not sit passive, they made huge gains. I think that I read that 
I dare say that many whales are invested in POB and in curation and put some serious upward pressure on this market because they saw a good investment opportunity. If we take away the reasons to stay invested, we lose the growth. We lose the writers, we lose the value.
Conclusion
If we take away trails, which are good for investors, and cut curation, which is good for investors... we lose investors, which is bad for everyone.
I will say it again. I earn way less allowing a trail to curate for me than by manually curating. From a perfectly selfish perspective, jack up the author rewards (I will earn more this way), kill the trails... I can find 10 posts to 100% upvote a day in 3 minutes. I will make way more, but... the platform suffers.
Intention is everything. If we intend to grow and nourish this platform, it will get better. There is room for trails. There is room for good curation rewards. It hasn't stopped author rewards from being some of the best on Hive. I don't think it is broken, and I am here for the long haul, so let's make sure we do it right. I am just one voice joining the conversation. What do you think.