I'll talk more about it in my Hive Goals post next Monday, but I did pass my Hive Power goal the other day, reaching and passing 35,000. Not a huge number, all things considered—still not even an orca yet, which I believe is around 55k now—but even so, it is a nice level to reach.

What are my reasons for powering up? Well, I like Hive and want to support it. Even with all the doom and gloom around here, even with the DHF abuse, even with all the negativity surrounding the abuse the whales are accused of, I still think Hive is a pretty great place. We have a great technology here and this place can be even greater in the future. Lots of potential. And hey, what other place on the web can you be paid for writing, low as it may be (especially right now, in the bear market).

Another of my reasons for powering up is curation and the upvotes I can give. I like supporting people. I'm not a rich man, so I can't really support the arts as much as I would like, but on Hive I can still try to be encouraging and show as much support as I am able. Currently my 100% upvote is right at $0.20. Again, that's not much, but it's something. When the price of HIVE goes up, that value will go up too.

And then there is comments, which the title of this post teased.

Up until now, I have always upvoted comments, but I have been using the upvote entirely as a "SEEN" message. Kind of how I use likes on other services. I usually reply to comments, so a SEEN isn't really necessary, but at the same time sometimes I don't reply, making the SEEN more valuable. Now we could argue that none of the Hive portals inform you very well when comments are upvoted, making my efforts somewhat futile given that the person I'm upvoting may not see that upvote (they may not even see if I reply to the comment), but I think it's a good habit to have.

The reason I treated it this way is that any vote under 2 cents goes to dust. That is, you don't get paid. In effect, it disappears. My HP has never been high enough to give comment upvotes beyond this dust limit in the past, but now I'm getting close! I see at the current value of HIVE, if I upvote at 10% then I give a 2 cent upvote. Finally I can get past the dust limit!

So going forward I will be upvoting all good comments at 10%. You'll get a penny on the deal after the comment pays out in a week. Again, it's not much, but it's something, eh? Better than before. That will cut into my post curation a little, as those 10% upvotes add up, but I do want to give at least a tiny thanks to everyone who takes the time to leave me a comment.

I decided I will continue to power-up 20-50 everyday even though I am past my goal, so hopefully that upvote keeps climbing!

[By the way, that chart above that shows my upvote at certain percentages—if you want to see it for you, go here, replacing @dbooster with your Hive name.]

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David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon.