I haven't written one of these posts for a while, so figure for the first day of Autumn, it is as good a time as any.
Firstly, just a little powerup this month.
A lot of people want to earn the capital, but they do not spend the time to build the social capital required - people matter.
Just last night a very random name came up in a discord chat that I remembered from years ago. This chat has a couple other "oldies" in it and I said, "I remember that name" - so did others. What is interesting is that the account in question was a random, very small, hardly known account - yet people still had a connection to it in some way, enough to remember it. These people are active Hive users who have built up social capital through their content and engagement, and it shows in the conversations we have as to how wide they have roamed these waters for years.
I joined Hive (before it was Hive) January 29, 2017.
How many months ago was January 29th 2017?
55 months
How many weeks ago was January 29th 2017?
239 weeks
How many days ago was January 29th 2017?
1676 days
How many hours, minutes and seconds ago?
40,210 hours
2,412,611 minutes
144,756,670 seconds
So. Consistency is key.
Remember, I am definitely not the most successful earner on Hive (I do okay), but I am probably among the most consistent, without having anything automated or delivering low-quality content - which is always debatable based on preference.
These are metrics that say how many weeks I have written a top-level post on each day (blockchain time) of a week and a month respectively.
This means that out of 239 weeks on this chain, I have "failed" to not post on a day during 9 weeks. Out of the 55 months I have been on, I have failed to not post on a day of the month during 3 months. This means that all of those 9 weeks I didn't post on each day of, all fell within those three months. All of these were in my first six months on the platform, as I haven't missed a day posting since mid-2017.
I used to post a lot more than I do today, but I made the very conscious and hard decision to post less. I enjoy earning, but I love creating content a lot, so making a move to post less hurt a bit - however, while I could do it when earning small amounts, as my earnings per-post grew, I scaled back and lengthened my posts even more.
This was good on the way up for price, but meant that the time and effort to earnings ratio was very bad during the bear markets and especially when combined with the bidbot era, as there was little active stake out there voting on actual content. But, consistency is the name of the game, so consistency reigned - regardless of earnings.
Still, I have a ratio of about 10:1 in comments:posts and while this isn't a huge amount, it is pretty high considering the amount. You can imagine that even if I spent only an hour on each, it still amounts to 198 full days or, 594x 8-hour work days. Posts take me longer than an hour to write.
Then, adding the 44,000 comments on top, if the average time I spend replying is 2 minutes (sounds reasonable though I suspect it might be more), that amounts to 1483 hours spent commenting, which is another 61 days or, 183x 8-hour work days.
A working year at a full-time job is about 225 days in Finland, so this means that my Hive content is the equivalent of 3.4 years of a full-time employment doing 5 days a week. But, Hive isn't five days a week - it is seven.
Hmmm. How's that hourly pay looking now?
Not great, but considering that I partly do this so that I have the financial opportunity to invest, it means that this is "disposable" income, though I do not dispose of any of it. This is my future retirement plan, I don't want to throw it away.
Now, someone who does earn a far bit more than me is 
let's see how consistent he is:
Nope.
He runs a couple accounts and while his comments are pretty low on his main, he has a lot on his LEO account. In fact, because he runs two accounts, he is earning a large amount - but this is the way of the platform. If people believe you add value, you earn value. People matter.
My point is, that whichever way you look at it, being consistent and offering value to the audience consistently, is what builds the relationships on the platform and in life in general. If you are an asshole in the real world and give nothing back, you might earn a bit in the short-term, but it is unlikely that people keep giving you value in the long-term. This means that if you don't use what you earn well, long-term, you are screwed as you might not earn anymore.
This points at the other factor involved in building relationships - trust. On Hive, trust is very important and while the reputation system is not a very good indicator, trust can be built in many ways. People can trust the content, the engagement, the behavior and the transactions. Since this is a stake based system and people correctly assume that the value of their stake is correlated to what other people do with their tokens. Powering up comes with risk, but it also shows faith in the platform and that stake can be used to support other users.
Yes. your tokens, you can do what you want with them,* but being a socially-powered platform, there are social ramifications. If an account takes and doesn't give back, people stop giving to it eventually. No one is entitled to receive votes, no matter what content they add to the platform, but the votes they get can be affected by how they behave in ways that matter to people who vote.
People often assume that larger accounts get votes because they are larger accounts, but that is actually rarely the case, or at least, not the main reason. Generally, the larger accounts have exhibited the types of behaviors that the voting public appreciate, so they show their appreciation. Some accounts have one or two large voters who always hit their posts - some accounts (I think mine is pretty spread in general) get votes from many accounts. I think another good indicator of value added is the spread of accounts commenting on the posts themselves. It would actually be interesting to see what kind of spread there is over the space of a month for example.
But, this post is getting long and most people are tuning out after 400 words - however I think a lot of people want to be successful on Hive and earn significant amounts, but they don't necessarily see what it takes. Just like most platforms that offer some kind of earnings in some way, it takes effort to earn - but for those with skills and gumption, Hive is probably one of the easiest places to get something significant and it is still hard - at least in my experience.
But, it isn't my point to put people off, rather the opposite. The potential to earn on Hive for those who put in the effort is very good and for those who are willing to reinvest their earnings and risk it on the future, the potential is very large indeed.
HIVE is at about 55 cents now and my earnings are far from great hourly, but far better than when it was at 10 cents at the start of the year. The value of the tokens I earn don't matter (they do in some cases - another post perhaps) until I sell them, meaning that when I earned 50 cents six months ago - that is now worth 2.50. My account at the low was worth about 20,000 - but I have been buying and powering up, as well as earning and it is now sitting at 150,000.
Time makes a huge difference in investments.
And it is because of this that consistency matters, as it is an investment into building an account that is able to attract value, in the same way that building a business requires, ideas, investment, work and time to get the business model running. Poor business models generally lead to business failure - not earning. If you want to earn on Hive, do you have an account model that supports earning? If not, why not?
Be very wary of people who give advice on how to be successful at online learning and be careful where you put your money, as there are a lot of people out there that talk a big game, but don't have the ability to back their words up. One of the benefits of Hive on this blockchain is that the track-record of an account is there - every transaction. This means that those who behave well can breathe easy, those who have not might live in fear of being found out. Some like we have seen in recent history have been very high earners but caught double-dipping and self-voting on multiple accounts and instantly, losing all the social capital they have built up. Maybe it was worth it for them, maybe not.
Oops - this post has now got longer.
I better go and do some real work that pays me more. Well, until time makes the difference and the work I do here outstrips my IRL earnings 10:1.
Hive Dreaming.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]