I've been on Hive for about a month now, so it makes sense that I haven't heard of any of this before now - I've got a bunch of tabs open now, though! Also going to look at the mentioned commentrewarder - I like the idea of passing on a revenue to commenters, directly, even if they don't get curation engagement (aside from my near-worthless upvotes).
As for why I should win some HSBI: I'll hold onto it, not immediately list to try and get whatever market is. I'll do my reading about it, probably end up writing about it. I'm planning to publish most of my content on Hive, going forward, but keeping my revenue in Hive and its broader ecosystem. So getting my attention early might be a way to get a portion of my revenue moving forward, too.
Regardless, here's a !BBH tip for helping me find some more accounts to follow!