Nah we haven't met before. Queensland here so not too far off.
I've been around since January 2018 so just passed the 8 years mark myself now. So yeah everything you said about communities getting kneecapped by downvotes when they were actually building something real, that's the kind of thing that makes people walk away and never come back. Natural Medicine having 100k in the wallet from actual hard work and then getting slapped down is a perfect example of why people get cynical. You can't tell people to build and then punish them for succeeding at it.
The voting circle stuff, I mean, we all see it. Everyone knows what's going on. Bros in Discord jerking each other off with upvotes while someone writes a genuinely great piece of creative fiction and gets 40 cents. That's not a mystery, it's just depressing.
I like your projects feed idea honestly. Discoverability is garbage right now. Things get built and die in silence because nobody even knew they existed. Something with more visibility that doesn't require people to go hunting would help.
The rep system doing nothing meaningful against bad actors is another one. Muting is a bandaid on a broken leg. But try getting consensus on anything stronger on a chain where the people with the most stake also have the most say in governance. You see the problem. I get why that other failed fork removed downvotes, they don't do anything and they can be used by whales to silence people far too easily.
Look the bones are good, I genuinely believe that. The tech underneath is solid and undervalued. But the social layer on top has calcified into something that actively repels normal users, and until that changes the tech doesn't matter because nobody's here to use it.
Anyway yeah I could go on about this for hours too. Good to meet someone else who gives enough of a shit to be angry about it. I'm gonna keep building and see what happens, it won't be for a lack of trying, ha.
I was a little worried to come back and read your reply actually - I thought my little rant might fall wrong. It's very nice for my complaints to be recognized if not validated. There's certainly a lot I can say about it but I don't want to dig a hole! The Natural Medicine thing almost broke me. The advent of community was such a heady time - it was honestly the most exciting, vibrant thing to happen post Steem. There was a real sense each community was creating something important that could spill out from Hive into the wider world. I mean, we had business cards made and all. To have that dashed really floored me. Looking at it from a distance now, it's kinda crazy how all that enthusiasm just flopped and there's a lot of fantastic people just have up around then.
I could write a book about those times! Honestly. It's hard to believe it was that long ago now - I remember being in India as covid hit and then in the UK running a community party on Discord and trying not to have a mental breakdown.
I wish we could at get that vibrancy again. I know people have different ways of seeing what's good for this platform, I totally respect that, but as you suggest, it's not fair that many of us who are fully invested emotionally don't have the financial sway to make it happen. State of the world though innit?
You have no idea how this recognition makes me feel. I feel like I'm the only one seeing this most of the time.
It's really nice to finally connect, and I really appreciate being seen and heard more than you could possibly know.
The fact you're still here despite how bleak and uncertain things have become goes to show you haven't given up and I think the universe has a way eventually rewarding that kind of optimism. Even if it feels like it takes forever to get it, haha. Now the overall crypto market is in a negative space, we are about to see who was really here for the money and who was here because they believed in the tech, community and potential of Hive (same for a lot of other projects, but especially Hive).
Thanks for making me feel better. Its hard to imagine a life without Hive.