There have been two posts on the Hive blockchain in the last week that define an ongoing debate about how to improve Hive and make it a better Web3 ecosystem. I'm a bit at odds with both ideas. Let's take a look at them.
The first of these, posted yesterday, is about LeoAds, a new initiative that will roll out on November 1 and showcase advertising on the Hive blockchain through InLeo (formerly LeoFinance). The LeoAds discussion has been going on for a couple of years on Hive. One group of Hivers believe that advertising will be an improvement on the blockchain and this advertising is scheduled to roll out in November. The claim from this group of Hivers is that advertising will make Hive more Web3. Every time the issue comes up, I have just one question:
How will advertising make Hive more Web3?
No one has been able to answer this question. It all boils down to additional monetization for those who choose to accept ads on their posts. But content monetization isn't Web3. It's one component of Web3 that is also a feature of Web2, particularly when it appears in the guise of advertising. Other components of Web3 include decentralization, censorship-resistance, and identity and asset protection.
The problem with advertising is that advertisers usually want to influence the message. When content creators take on sponsors, those sponsors don't want to be criticized and very often will withdraw their advertising if initiatives they support are challenged. That is not censorship-resistance.
I'll be watching the LeoAds initiative closely to see exactly how that plays out on the Hive blockchain and whether it leads to advertisers wanting more control over content messaging.
Hive5 and the Battle Over Downvotes
The other initiative being proposed is a bit more honest, in my opinion. A user on the Hive blockchain who goes by @agorise made a public post suggesting some changes to the core code of Hive that will curtail the centralization of power into the hands of a few. His proposal is organized into 12 core components.
@unklebonehead and I had @kencode on the Defluenced podcast this week to discuss his ideas. You can listen to that podcast right here:
We only got to talk about the first component of the proposed changes, which deal with the downvote feature on Hive. No one is suggesting the downvote feature be done away. Ken Code was very clear about that. However, there are some recognizable abuses of the downvote button that some people on Hive want to change.
Personally, I understand their arguments. I've never had a problem with people downvoting my content. Evidently, some people have and Ken Code names them.
The biggest issue seems to be that whales have such massive power on the blockchain that they can downvote a new user to such a degree that user ends up with a negative reputation score from which they can't recover and end up leaving the blockchain. If we were talking about child pornographers, rapists, and murderers, no one would care. But, according to Code, we're talking about legitimate content creators who post about controversial topics, and some of them have quite a following on other platforms.
I haven't researched Code's claims to see how accurate they are, but if they're even modestly accurate, then I'll admit there's a downvote problem on Hive.
There are other issues with the downvote button. For instance, I've actually witnessed downvote wars (on both Hive and Steemit) where individuals, and even groups, got into a dispute over something and busied themselves downvoting each other's content into obscurity. I've witnessed a few whales take it upon themselves to simply target someone of a weaker economic class as a "defense" for one of their friends whom the whale felt was downvoted or criticized unfairly. This, too, flies in the face of censorship-resistance. The claim that the Hive blockchain is censorship-resistant when this kind of behavior exists is weakened.
I'm not saying that Hive is not censorship-resistant. However, whales using the downvote feature as a weapon against those they don't like or agree with on matters that are not repugnant to the majority of the community certainly places those whales in a censoring position when their downvotes target those of a weaker economic class on the blockchain.
What the proposal attempts to do is mitigate the fallout from this type of behavior on the blockchain. In the real world, we have laws that protect weaker classes from those with an imbalance of power. These laws are meant to distribute justice fairly among all citizens of the population. On blockchains, which are often populated by people from all over the world and from a variety of cultures and nations, the only "law" that can address justice in a meaningful way is the code. How does the code make the system more fair for everyone such that a few don't end up dictating how everyone else behaves, what everyone else can say, and how everyone else can monetize their content and express themselves.
I'm not convinced that the proposal offers the best solution, but I do at least recognize the chutzpah of Ken Code, Agorise, and others who support the proposal. All they want to do is have a discussion. Certainly, the Hive community can give them that.
Image is a screenshot from the original post.
This post was first published by Author Allen Taylor at Paragraph.
I really need to let you write the podcast descriptions and show notes. I suck as a writer. Lol.
I've never actually thought of that. lol
I don't think you're doing a bad job.
Yay! 🤗
Your content has been boosted with Ecency Points, by @allentaylor.
Use Ecency daily to boost your growth on platform!
Support Ecency
Vote for new Proposal
Delegate HP and earn more
Huh? There is hardly a few and anyone can do something about it instantly, power up instead of constantly selling.
That being said, very few people actually downvote yet everyone wants to complain about downvotes. Ken actually complaining is actually hysterical on a few levels but I’ll leave those to your imagination.
There is a perception of Hive being a "Ponzi scheme" that benefits the whales and no one else. Much of that perception is by former users. Some of it comes from not understanding the economics of the platform, which are quite complex, to be honest. One almost needs an advanced degree in mathematics to understand it.
Powering up certainly is the desirable thing to do. When one understands the point to doing so, it makes perfect sense. I think a lot of people are bitten by the instant gratification bug. They want the immediate income rather than the long-term economic benefit. Human nature, I guess.
I don't know how many use the downvote button. I do know there are people who have taken it upon themselves to "correct" posts that they perceive to be overcompensated. This is childish behavior, which is going to happen on any platform, probably more so on a platform that offers economic incentives. We don't want that guy earning more than he's worth, sort of thinking. Okay, well, that's really silly, especially if that guy has been on the blockchain for two months and has a reputation of 39. If that kind of behavior drives people away from the blockchain such that they never come back and badmouth the blockchain when they go, then it is damaging. And, I would say it's damaging in a way that none of us should want.
I don't agree with everything in @kencode's proposal, but I think it's worth discussing. Nothing is perfect. Everything can be improved. That's my line of thinking.
Just look at trending and you can see this is bs. How many "whales" do you see on trending pulling in $50-100+/day from the global inflation?
I can tell you, as the person who uses it the most on the chain... Not enough.
Childish behavior? You ok with this?
Without downvotes, this is all you would see. Just look at Steem trending and see what it has become.
I won't argue there are shitty downvotes here, but it's hardly a epidemic, as someone who has giant whales downvoting anything I do (because I fight abuse), I still support downvotes.
No one's saying downvotes should disappear. I was very active on Steemit. I witnessed bidbot abuse, which is likely what that $900+ is all about. I'm glad we don't have that issue on Hive. Still, a good system can have inequities.
I'm curious, where are the metrics that show who has the most downvotes? Is there someone tracking that, or does that come from researching chain transactions? It could take a lot of time to determine that manually.
I'm not saying I agree with the Ponzi scheme mentality. I defend Hive when I hear it because I don't believe it either, but it is a negative perception that we face, and if that perception leads to people shying away from Hive, it's something that will eventually have to be dealt with. We already know Hive has been losing users. There could be any number of reasons for that, some are likely unrelated to this discussion. But it's worth discussing, nonetheless IMO.
I just did a query on last 30 days of downvotes. Most of these downvotes have almost no affect on payout as they are microscopic. Mine, adm, and gogreenbudy (who follows mine) are the only ones with any real weight. Adm is the main account used by Hive Watchers themselves. So please show me where whales are misusing downvotes, or are you just repeating garbage other people say?
Ken has an agenda, he is referring to the downvotes I give tdvtv, who is his customer. This account posts 40+ times a day, many times duplicate content, almost always other people's content, and many times his stuff is broken and posts the same thing multiple times. Ken was pissed I was downvoting it, but ultimate resulted in his change it so most of the posts are declined payout when it isn't his own content (which is a good thing). He then contacted me later asking me to do something because he accused this account to be a pedophile and putting his family at risk due what he has seen in his videos. I told him to contact the police, I have nothing to do with it. Yet he calls me a criminal for downvoting the account which I do as I feel it is in Hive's best interest, not my own.
This whole downvote thing is absolute bullshit. It's a microscopic issue, that they blow up to be an epedemic. Again, this is coming from someone who has had the most malicious downvotes than anyone on Hive. I've been downvoted for over $400 a day for months. I have one whale downvoting me for $60+ when I post. Yet I am still one of the biggest supporters of downvotes.
Everyone on Hive has an agenda. Wanting growth for Hive again is not a bad thing like you imply.
Vigilante.tv contributors have every right to post 100+ times a day if they like. They are adding more awesome Creators to their platform every month and many of them post daily. The Hive blockchain enables a platform to post every 6 minutes if you like and personally I would encourage them to grow even bigger and onboard more Creators.
That did happen in the past, but some dupe-detection code was added so that it would spot dupes automatically, so hopefully dupes are not slipping thru anymore. You sound as if you found some other dupes slipping through tho.. If the code misses a duplicate, then why not let the platform owner know about it? They have a Contact Us page here:
https://vigilante.tv
A $60 downvote won't affect you the same way it would affect someone with a reputation of 30. This is all relative. As a witness, I would expect you to make enemies. If you're not, you probably aren't doing something right.
I'm merely reporting what other people say. It's not all about Ken Code. There are MANY people, former users of both Hive and Steemit, who have negative feelings about these platforms about the very same thing. Can they all be wrong?
Do you know 30 rep users (who are model citizens) getting $60 downvotes?
People say a lot of useless shit. Again, show me where this is happening.