I suppose the only issue with Hive is that it is reflective of the class system that is apparent in the rest of the world.
Those that have more have more influence by default.
One bad seed of the 'whale' category is enough to make people lose trust in the platform as an equal representation of all voices.
Because well, I bring my mind here - not my wallet because well, money has never been a direct motivation for me to be alive - I get by and in the meantime I engage and enjoy life. (admittedly, I was born in a country that has no major concern for money - however, have travelled the world as a vagrant for seven years, many times living day to day as a street musician so I have a decent perspective on 'lack').
I'm grateful for the opportunities at Hive to express my mind and to connect with others that do so but it is in no way infallible.
It is however important to acknowledge that it is a big step in the right direction.
The argument against mine, is that well, don't I deserve more influence for putting in more work and investing more mullah? To an extent, yes - however an equal footing for all is dependent then on you the large stakeholder's personal views, opinions and beliefs - because your vision of society is super-imposed onto the rest of us by your exercise of power - explicitly, implicitly or tacitly.
I have a total of 2000 dollars to my name, I run a small cafe, I play music on the street - I have no ambition to take over the world with private enterprise - yet, I live with the self-empowerment of someone that is equal to anyone with any volume of wealth because I am fearless.
Does that qualify me to have an equal voice?
Some say it doesn't but if we didn't listen to minds in the gutter of the economy throughout history we may have no societal development or emotional development.
This is a long-running debate, because as soon as a new environment/platform is created - new domains/jurisdictions are created by the participants and the definitions of freedom that that community decide to uphold are the foundations that decide the longevity of that platform.
All platforms have an end in sight - because no one foundation can weather all the changes that time brings with it. This much must be accepted to create a platform that lasts for much longer than the usual premature ejaculation of cultural and social trends.
The idea of decentralized blockchain is to have a trustless system that works and removes the need to trust one or some entities. It is important to achive the security and integrity of the network. Various blockchains user different methods to achieve that. Bitcoin uses proof of work, Hive uses delegated proof of stake.
Dpos makes the system/network work because participants have skin in the game. Of course higher stakes give higher influence on the governance and reward distribution of the network. It is free market, anybody can acquire stakes/influence or lower their stakes/influence.
However, Hive having a strong social layer and community, high stakes is not needed to have a voice.
Participant’s voice I believe has to do more with their skills to express their voice and networking rather than having high stakes.
High stakes is like a shortcut, it may draw attention with zero effort to be heard.
This is very true.
And it is also true that Hive does a better job at decentralisation than other self-proclaimed decentralised initiatives. However as you state it is still a market and this brings with it all the benefits or non-benefits of the haves and have-nots, just like in class society.
Let me present a scenario, say Mr Trump decides Hive is his new home (I'm not for or against him by the way) and brings with him 20 friends and they all together end up buying a significantly larger stake than any present whale..
They also set up 20 new witnesses, and 5,000 people come along to support him and also vote for his witnesses.
What then happens to the Hive community?
I realise this is a little outrageous a scenario but considering that even a similar scenario on a lesser scale can have a dramatic effect on the Hive eco-system... What then?
I support Hive for the moment, I'm grateful it exists. But I'm also curious if there are fail-safes against 'takeovers' like this so Hive can retain its decentralised identity as a free speech platform.
I guess it is class society if you view it from the point of influence to rewards distribution. That’s where it ends though.
Nobody can control the actions of my account, and my wallet. Dpos makes sure my assets are only accessible by me alone and my content can only be posted and edited by me. This applies to any user.
You have a great example of how new wealthy stakeholders could attack the network that may not be in the benefit of the community.
I doubt it is possible. The way stakes are currently distributed no one person or small group of people can take over the network to benefit themselves at the cost of others.
If some rich person or people decided to buy up a lot of hive to have any significant influence, the price of hive would jump up so high it would be to costly for them. Now since it costs them a lot, they would have to act in a way to benefit the platform and all participants so that they don’t lose their investment value.
Lastly, if large amount of people decided this place is hostile to them they can always fork out and start a new chain. The code is open source.
The two reason hostile takeover of justin sun happened on steem because he bought large amounts of steemit stakes over the counter behind the closed door secret deal with Ned. He would never be able to buy such amount on exchanges. This stake wasn’t even suppose to be used for governance due to being ninja-mined. Second reason, large exchanges like binance colluded with justin and used user funds as stakes.
These two things are no longer possible on Hive. Hence, I can’t think of another hostile takeovers and attempts to centralize.
Thanks for your comprehensive answers. I knew some of the history but now know more.
I have a little more faith in the platform now. Still skeptical though, as is healthy to be.
All the best and thanks for your contributions to the Hive community,
Monty