@truthforce: I agree, the

I agree, the small posters here don't really get anything. They can try joining a community, but the long time favorite posters who have been here for years get the lions share of upvotes.

Generally speaking, the longer you are here, the more you are able to learn. That's because you collect followers over time, not all at once. With each post you are exposed to new potential upvoters. So yes, the more time you have been here the more you will earn but that does not require that you have been here from the beginning.

Which is why most new people on here make an account and quit pretty quickly. Their posts can't get upvotes and they can't get seen. This place also became more of a mess when they introduced communities, now I have half of the people posting stuff in #informationwar tag and the other half posting in Informationwar community. I have to go to two places now to make sure I see all of those posts, whereas before it was 1 place.

It's unfortunate that people expect fast, easy money. It's like sticking up a web page selling stuff and expecting to start making a lot in sales right away. That doesn't happen without a lot of work up front. You might use marketing and SEO in addition to providing a product that people want. On hive, you have to use persistence, participation and networking...in addition to making posts people want to read.

Communities have their advantages that I think outweigh the disadvantages. Personally, I don't find it to be a big deal to look at a tag and a community. I'm usually looking at multiple communities and tags anyway.