I have slowly been dragged kicking and screaming to agree with you. This comment in fact is the best, most concise explanation of why the rewards for the curators are just as important as the rewards for the content creators.

Damn reason and good sense! I so want to retreat to my former position that it's ludicrous to value the act of upvoting a post to the work that goes into creating it, which seems obvious and incontrovertible on it's face.

The truth is that valuing the labor of creation of a work is a trap. It isn't the labor of writing that is of vaue, but the content of the ideas therein, and the act of delivering value to those ideas, curation, is no less integral to the process.

You sold me. I here publicly apologize to all the folks I've disagreed with on this matter in the past, because I was wrong. Thanks for planting the seeds that have eventually prompted my growth.