Wow. I wonder why they keep getting big votes

It's genuinely a mystery. It's clear that accounts like appreciator really focus on certain authors. They can post whatever in any community and they'll get the support. Then for others it can be a bit more randomised. There's some structure there but it doesn't quite make sense.

Anyway, it's not really a matter how much others make, it's the fact that some of these accounts are making a stupid amount but contribute nothing to the rest of Hive in the form of engagement. Votes are everything and if the top earners aren't bothering to curate anyone, and the top curators aren't bothering to curate anyone else, then all that's left is death for Hive as people earn mere fractions of a cent and then leave.

We've been seeing this happening for over a year now as communities see less activity. Naturally rewards decrease as the price does, but I've noticed some of the biggest communities are lucky if they're above 200 active users. And very lucky if they're breaking above 1k in pending weekly rewards. The reality is, so few are curating. So people are just not posting so much.

Curators/curation guilds definitely do a great job, there's no doubt about it. But I think we're just constantly pushing into too much reliance on that side of things. Every cent vote counts for something, really.