...do you mean something other than the upvote percentage...

I would suggest removing all rewards for number of upvotes as well as curation rewards. Replace all these timed and manipulated voting and reward systems with a tipping button that is tied to a stable coin on the HIVE blockchain.

A tipping button may seem duplicative, since one can simply send a favorite content creator some HIVE directly with a public message about enjoying the writer's content. However, PeakD has improved the idea and correctly guessed the appropriate social aspect of a tipping button. Their button shows the users who have tipped... and the tip value is stable at 0.990 HIVE. This fixes most the problem.

Brave's BAT ecosystem works a little better by adding the ability to tip in three set values of BAT. However, BAT is missing the social approval aspect.

An ideal system would allow an arbitrary tip sent in a stable coin and publicly recorded at the location of the content.

• Good content is written because people want to share.

• Poor content is written because people want to manipulate the voting system.

The same is true of other and older reward systems for creating and sharing content and ideas... the patent system and copyright systems are broken in a similar way. The idea that people will only be willing to share if paid to do so is faulty.

Is an economy that is solely based on the participants of a social media platform (and no outside investors) voting and trading with each other sustainable without a steady addition of users who want to buy in and stake?

Unfortunately, in social media platforms, those who run the platform should be separate from those who utilize the platform. This does not mean that those who run the system should participate in the system. Rather, it means that two separate systems of rewards are needed. Those who run the system should not be able to manipulate the content creation rewards.

Two coins, two separate reward systems.

The rewards for staking HIVE should be tied to platform metrics. The rewards for content creation should be tied to reader satisfaction. One coin can not span both reward systems.