Because influence is not measured in percentages, it is measured in concrete value that is your HP.
Saying that adding 2K HP to a 20K account really means that "the middle class can expand its influence." Umm, not really. Adding 2K may feel like an accomplishment (and it is), the real-world "influence" is very small. Daily curations and comments are what build true favor with HIVIANS. Large HP is nice, but only goes so far. YouTube "influencers" have no HIVE POWER number, they don't need it. Their own personalities are their influence.
!WINE
!COFFEE
!PGM
Influence here represents concrete actions you can take with your HP. Voting for a witness, a proposal or just voting a post. Things that actually influence the Hive Blockchain.
We are not talking about the abstract influence. Since the concrete version is what taskmaster talks about in his post about Hive Middle-Class.
Quotes are taskmaster's words in his post, I should probably make that clearer.
Basically, this post is a critique of that post and taskmaster in general.
I've always seen the technical influence on the blockchain (voting) as inherently linked to the social and behavioral influence of people. This is why when I vote, I always vote 100% on everything, even when from a technical or economical point of view, I would do much better using smaller percentages. From a social standpoint, it's better to give it ALL.
"Come for the crypto, stay for the community." I see community (and positive social pressure) as the thing that stops people from pumping and dumping. It encourages powering up, it encourages interactions, encourages content creation. For the most part, HIVE hasn't had the rollercoaster experience of some other tokens. I believe that positive social pressure has played a role in that.
I know the post is about hopium and is a critique of taskmaster's claims about the reality of the HIVE blockchain. But some honest and reasonable "hope" is always a good thing. We just have to be honest with ourselves and with others. I've been posting here on HIVE (formerly STEEM) since 2017. HIVE is supposed to be $10 by now, according to the hopium of yesteryear.
Problem with this, you are confounding two different things together. Of course, anyone can have influence that is independent of the HP they have, but this influence wouldn't translate to influence over the blockchain.
Even in the example you gave, your influence over the blockchain is just the value of your 100% vote. Your influnce outside of your HP can't suddenly make your vote value to be 105%.
And if continue on your example, if after your 100% vote, I in-turn vote your post for 100% that is my influence over the blockchain and not yours. Even if your 100% vote was the catalyst for it.
This is what I mean by concrete influence and which taskmaster post was about.
I agree honest and reasonable hope is a good thing.
Saying "Hey if you keep posting, you might hit 2000 HP by the end of year." to someone with 1.5K HP is honest and reasonable.
Saying, "Hey, you increased your HP from 1K to 2K. Look at that 100% gain. With those gains you will have the same influence over the blockchain as blocktrades one day." is dishonest. It is selling false hope, i.e hopium :)