Well, 9 days actually. But close enough right?
My journey on Hive started with a desire for decentralization in my life. Inspired by Yanis Varoufakis and Cory Doctorow, I did some searching, found Hive, and made an account.
I think it's because of this path to joining the platform that I had such a difficult new user experience. I wasn't on-boarded by an existing platform, or delegated any HP by a friend. I was alone in this new digital sea, and it was sink or swim.
My first thought was to migrate some of my old posts over from my website. Then I immediately ran out of RC. So, over the next few days, I spent the meager RC I was earning to follow some people and communities, as well as to vote on a few posts that I was passionate about. I looked on the Hive website for any New User guides, but outside of technical advice, my search came up empty. I should have known to look on-platform, but without experience there wasn't an easy way for me to find guides, and learn the etiquette of Hive.
When I finally mentioned this slow existence in my first comment, people were kind and delegated some HP to me so that I could get started in earnest.
I still have yet to earn a payout, but that isn't my primary motivation. My goal is to find like-minded people here. To share ideas with them, and to replace the traditional social media networks that were feeding on my depression, anxiety, and anger.
Hive isn't perfect. For one, I doubt that my initial experience is unique, and I assume there are a lot of ghost accounts of people who never overcame the switching costs to commit to the platform. Outside of that, the discussions on Hive tend to be very niche. Hive-based games, Cryptocurrency discussion, and self promotion tend to be the bulk of the content that I see. There is a fair amount of spam as well as posts which in my opinion lack substance or personality. There is also some blatant platform manipulation, such as the Liketu community, which provides "synthetic on-chain reacts".
For all of my griping, there is a lot of genuine humanity here. I see the potential for Hive to become a platform where real human people come to be themselves. Away from any algorithmic curator, and away from any dogmatic moderation or censorship.
I'm bought into Hive as my new home for my musings. I hope you like reading them as much as I like writing them.
Welcome to the shitshow! I've been here for... 6 years? I think? Took breaks now and then but always find myself back here reading folks posts and chatting with the community. It's an interesting mix of people here. Hope you find a niche worth staying for.
So far my niche is "Shouting into the void and hoping to get some traction". But as I learn I hope to find my style and success.
A big part of finding success here will be honestly just thoughtfully commenting on stuff folks put out there. It'll create a network of users who go 'oh I know that name!' and you'll find support and growth even if they and you don't necessarily share blogging interests.
Some folks think that bare-bones comment-spam is the same, as I'm sure you've seen or will see soon, and it's not. Real replies with real thoughts are a cheat-code here.
Best of luck!
The main thing that I've noticed is that those who seem to do the best here are authentic and opinionated. There are a lot of posts and comments that are careful, or summarize a topic factually, but not emotionally. But people who are actually being themselves are the ones with a following and who find success.
Thoughtful post. And you are right about people's difficulties when they first arrive. I joined 8 years ago (before RC was an issue) and initially gave up before returning a few months later. I hope you have lots of good experiences to come
I'm glad that you returned, and I'm glad that I stuck it out. I'm not really sure what the Hive platform could do to ease the transition without playing favorites by auto-subscribing new users to the https://ecency.com/created/hive-153850 community. But I'm sure as the appetite for growth increases, those a lot more educated on the chain will find solutions.
I have been here for over 8 years and Ecency has become my home. I don't use any other social media sites.There are some helpful tutorials at hive-125126 Ecency Help Community or in the Ecency Discord Information channel. https://discord.gg/v9syhE5a
Sending you some Ecency curation votes!
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