As I have written before, I am a big fan of "Layer Two" communities in Hivelandia, and their (often) connected Hive-Engine tokens.
Of course, the scope and success of such communities run the range from moderately successful to "?????? WTF?"
Who's Minding the Store?
Without a doubt, community building is a hands-on activity. Unless your intention was just "pocket the original cash and run" (in which case SHAME on you!) that generally doesn't work well, when it comes to not only building, but maintaining a successful community.
So that invariably leaves me with the question of "Who's minding the store?" and the follow-up question of "ARE they even minding the store?"
Which leads to the third question: "What does 'minding the store' even mean?"
Expectations?
From what I understand — and I am not technically inclined — it's pretty easy to create a community, set up your own Hive-Engine token with its own tokenomics, and even create your own "Outpost" front end for your community.
Seems to happen quite a bit.
And then pretty much everything stops there.
Typically, there's a fair amount of initial excitement about a new community, after which both usage and the token value sink into obscurity and eventual nothingness.
Seems to me like a lot of people with good ideas have exactly that — a good idea, but very little grip on the amount of work and dedication it actually takes to build and subsequently maintain a thriving and vibrant community!
Having done the whole SYSOP/Admin/Community moderator gig for a really long time (LONG before Hive) not many fully grasp how much of a grind it is!
Where Does the VALUE Come From?
Of course, here we deal with an additional wrinkle, from a "mechanics" standpoint: Tokens... which both founders and users are hopeful will not only maintain their value, but become more valuable over time.
But where does value come from? Moreover, where does value come from, in a scenario where a substantial amount of the "pitch" is that people get rewards/money for participating?
People not only have to feel continually inspired to participate because the community is just too interesting and cool to miss out on, they also have to feel like the community/token is heading in a direction that makes it more attractive to hold the tokens as they are earned than to sell the tokens for pizza money and cigarettes. Which is actually a hell of a challenge!
I look at how hard the folks driving LeoFinance are innovating and working — it is a monumental effort that's taking Leo Finance forward. And it never stops.
Death Spirals
The vast majority of Hive-Engine/Layer Two communities have nowhere NEAR that level of energy and dedication behind them.
And hence the question "Who's minding the store?"
Because if the answer is that nobody's minding the store, and the community is basically just left to find its own way... that's unlikely to become much of anything... besides a complete disaster.
What is both noteworthy and a little bit sad is the fact that plenty of communities are started with a pretty sound idea, but there's a disappointing lack of follow-through.
Of course, I feel pretty confident in saying that the most common "explanation" is that the founders "didn't realize it was going to be so much WORK!" which has been the most common "exit excuse" I've heard from departing leaders of 100's of failed web communities over the past 25-odd years.
I'm also too smart a cat to try to drive communities, for this very reason! I can be a pretty loyal participant, and an occasionally reliable cheerleader, but my building days are over!
These days, I just look for the gold nuggets in the paydirt... and they can be quite difficult to find! And you have to evaluate them not on;y for value, but for lasting value!
=^..^=
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I'm honestly not sure what makes almost any of these layer 2s worth anything. Even LEO had me scratching my head until the started the token buyback with ad revenue. Still I collect tokens.
!LOL
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Most of them seem to have no value at all... and no plan of capacity to add value.
=^..^=