A discussion yesterday brought Resource Credits (RCs) into the conversation in regard to engagement. If you are unaware, Resource Credits are a token that is spent (and recharges over 5 days) to provide bandwidth to use the chain and the amount of resources one has is dependent on how much Hive Power one holds. The important thing to know is, resource credits have no draw on the pool, which means that they have no direct earning potential, minimizing many avenues of abuse. However, RCs do allow for transactions to be made.
For example, an account of mine that has 5.3 HP can make:
6 comments
95 votes
37 transfers
This is over the space of 5 days, meaning that an account with so little Resource Credits can comment about once a day. This was brought in back toward the end of 2018 in hardfork 20 (if I remember correctly) and as soon as it was, spam on the chain immediately dropped by 80%. While there are lots of arguments around right and wrong in resource credits and engagement, not many people really enjoy the spam either and there were accounts that were literally posting a spam comment every 20 seconds or so - this is also why the "drop off" in comment transactions isn't a very good indicator as well.
However, 1 comment a day isn't really going to get someone very far into the community.
But, Resource Credits (at some point) will be delegatable through a pool system, which means that they can be "freely" given to accounts without risking Hive pool abuse and, can also be undelegated if needs be by the delegating account. Since delegating Resource Credits doesn't change delegating account vote values, it is essentially a "no-risk" venture to provide accounts with credits and provide them far more bandwidth to interact with. From there, it will be through their behavior, (not their vote), they have the opportunity to earn from the community, who can reward their posts or comments.
It is a great feature of Hive that it is possible to earn without any investment, however, I am not completely sure it is the best approach for most people to take. Yes, I understand that not everyone can buy-in, but essentially 20 dollars will buy (currently) about 80 HIVE POWER and all the resource credits a person might need to get going, which is about the same value as 1.5 months of a Netflix subscription - and that "subscription is not only for life, but has the potential in and of itself to go up in value significantly.
80 HIVE is worth 20 dollars today, but how much in two years from now? You can't answer - it might be zero, it might be 10 dollars, it might be 40 dollars - each. 20 dollars in for 800 dollars (@10) in 2 years is a better ROI percentage than most will ever get.
I digress.
My point with this point is that Hive encourages ownership and ownership comes with costs for and risks of ownership. Just because it is possible to earn on content without buying any HIVE at all, it doesn't mean that one should do it that way, unless there really is no other alternative. Starting from "one comment a day" and working toward for example 100 HIVE POWER through earnings alone, is a monumental task that most will fail at - especially now - this isn't 2016 anymore.
Even with Resource Credit delegation, I wouldn't recommend someone who can afford to drop a few dollars on HIVE, to attempt to earn from scratch alone. As said, ownership comes with costs, it takes investment. For starters, what happens if once all new accounts can interact "freely" with the RC delegations, love this place and start to buy? Well, that 20 dollars no longer buys 80 HIVE POWER, it might buy 60, or 40, or 10...
What I think people need to remember when buying HIVE POWER is that it is for life until one sells (or loses keys) it. It is a subscription into the community that will continue on for as long as the community survives and it will have ssome draw on the pool for life also. And as I said, Hive encourages ownership of experience and therefore, encourages investment into experience.
I think @Splinterlands is a good example of the contradiction, where people buy cards to play the game - and no one complains. However, once it is suggested that people buy HIVE POWER to "play the game", people are up in arms as if everyone should be able to earn freely, no matter what they bring to the table. This is the legacy of "traditional" social media and the web 2.0 world, where everything is provided for "free" while the true cost is well and above what people would willingly pay if it was all transparent. @therealwolf asked a question yesterday about what one thing you would change about social media and I think, TRANSPARENCY would be right up there on my list.
Now, it is possible to earn with a comment a day, but it would have to be a very well placed and decent comment. To earn significant stake from this point will take dedication. For those who consider themselves investors, haven't bought any HIVE, but are critical of where the earnings go and the price of HIVE, I think they don't really understand investing at all. If they aren't willing to buy into the experience on Hive, why would they expect others similar to themselves to buy in and support the community?
Once Resource Credit delegation becomes a thing, we will have the opportunity to provide all accounts that need an adequate amount to get started interaction with the community. Potentially, it might be a good idea to also identify all low HP accounts that have made a comment on HIVE since the fork, and provide them with some more Resource Credits with an additional comment explaining why, to see if it makes a difference to their continued journey. This might create a growing mass of users who could earn on their interactions, but more importantly, can enjoy interaction on Hive to their hearts content without hitting resource roadblocks, nor having Hive investors worry too much about them abusing a delegation.
If I remember correctly, @howo is working on Resource Credit delegations and they are earmarked for Hardfork 24 (the next) or 25. I am hoping that once there is the potential to give many users "interaction potential" freely, a growing percentage of those users will learn how valuable it is to become a HIVE owner and opt-in and choose to be here as part of the investor mass going forward.
No one is forced to invest into Hive, it doesn't mean you shouldn't, if you can.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
Posted Using LeoFinance
If a user runs out of RC, I run https://giftgiver.site which a user can use to get a free small temporary delegation in order to continue operating on the chain.
This is a good idea thanks.
It doesn't solve the issues of course, but at least is a nice little stop gap measure :)
My cousin is trying to sign up for a Hive account but she says it keeps coming up site not found....do you have a link to sign up?
https://signup.hive.io/
Go Away.
The link abh has given has many options available. =)
I didn't ask him.
He answered.
Again I didn't ask him. Once again his action only lead to confusion.
He lost my trust, I wouldn't ask someone who I don't trust.
Strange, he added the correct link.
With half a dozen or more different options....she just needs a basic account like mine so which option is that? It would be nice also to know where she could get enough rc delegated to get started.
There is a fair argument that suggests RC delegations should have come in the same fork.
We may not ever know just how many people we lost because they ran out of resources at the first hurdle.
I'd like to have a go at comparing retention following the 'spam reduction' fork and this upcoming RC fork, if RC delegations are included.
Yep, but I don't think that they thought it through fully and they were meant to follow "just behind", but that didn't happen and they fired people instead.
I think it will take time to see the impact, as it will need to await new users to test it.
Agreed to both.
I think it would be reasonable to look at the 3 months following the 'spam chop fork' and compare them to the 3 months following this one. Should be enough of a time-frame for an idea if we lost 1000's because they couldn't reply to a reply!
yep, I will have to think of some conditions that might affect your calculations too :)
Input welcome, I'd have little to post about otherwise :)
RC delegations is such a cool concept, not sure of the logistics of it all but the thought of being able to delegate RC to accounts is fantastic while keeping your HP....
Great post and some great food for thought!
It is very cool and given the right conditions, actually have value themselves in several ways also. They can create "artefacts" in the same way they create account tokens, meaning it should be possible to use them in gaming scenarios to do things like create a weapon. Then because they are bandwidth, with enough user demand, they may carry a price - for example an application could "buy them" with their native SMT.
RC delegations would be good, for now though there is not much a person that joins Hive can do other than buy, or be gifted a delegation. I have seen the arguments for buying in, I do not see at this stage of Hive how that is going to work. You once again will only get the average or beginner crypto users.
Billy Bob Joe down the street may have no idea at all what crypto is, how to buy it, or what to use it for.
Right now Blurt, a new fork of steem is getting prepped to go. Would you pay twenty dollars just to see what it is about or how it works with no guarantee that you will be able to get your money back if you don't like it?
The ability to delegate RC's will help a lot, that would mean people could sign up and get a free trail offer type thing. Try before you buy. Until that happens if we want to have a chance at retaining new users, those zero HP accounts need help.
Not if they buy in at the application level - for example to play Splinterlands.
BTW, @rishi556 added a link to his tool here: https://giftgiver.site
The cost depends on what is being offered. For example, people will put down 80 dollars for a game they might not like or clock in a week - and be okay with that - or 50 dollars for 2 movie tickets for a 2 hr movie. People consume weirdly and evaluate worth weirdly too. I think a lot of it is conditioning and we have been led to believe that social media is "free" even though the profits of gaming and cinema pale in comparison to what the platforms generate.
They accept credit card payment for cards. Currently, as far as I know there is no method for a non crypto person to use a credit card to buy in to Hive Block Chain. One of the reasons I have not invested any money is because there simply is not an easy method to do so.
I watched with interest the Sequoir AMA and their credit card service, unfortunately I live in one of the states they are not available in.
If and when it is as easy to buy Hive as it is to buy Splinterlands cards I am sure more people will be buying. And as you mentioned, Social Media Sites have for the most part always been free, and that is a stumbling block for a site that does not offer the convenience of the free sites.
So we approach the point of pay to play, and expect non crypto people to be knocking on our door filling the coffers with content, yet are not capable of providing a simple "Pay to Play" interface. Being a decentralized entity there is not even an easy place for new people to go and find where to get help from.
I had a new user this morning ask me if I knew whether or not Hive had a discord chat room to get some help in. He could not find a link to it. When you look at the #help tag it is a complete waste of time for a new user as a means of finding help. #peakdhelp,and #hivehelp also the same. If a new user goes to the @hiveio the main account for hive, finding a help post not easy, same with going to @peakd main account page.
So how do new people find help? Where do they turn? and how do they find resources such as : @rishi556 tool https://giftgiver.site?
It is pretty easy to simply say people should buy in, I would like to buy in more. We need as a community of decentralized people a centralized place for people to go and find the answers they need. I know peakd is working on their FAQ for peakd, where is the FAQ/Help page for Hive Block Chain.
A lot of people are waiting on the first and final splitting away from steem fork. It will be happening soon, maybe then we will all have a better idea of the direction Hive is going, and be able to come to some sort of consensus for a location that will be the FAQ/Help page for Hive Block Chain. If there is already one I do not know where it is.
Yep, I understand the frustrations people have with the gateways into crypto of pretty much any kind. It is only recently I think that Binance and Bittrex started taking credit card transfers.
And yes, part of the issue is the decentralized nature of it all. People like convenient and easy, but they also like to earn - something the other platforms don't really offer the casual user, ever.
The "help desk" is defiitely a challenge and the FAQs should be introduced by default at signup, as well as a checkbox of "guidelines" a user that comes through at least the main gateways will have to read.
This makes perfect sense re investment. But perhaps to motivate once the person invests say a 10 dollar instead to buy in. An experienced hover delegates an equal amount and show them the ropes encouraging them to double their investment and get them hooked. This might increased retention rates and also help new accounts not feel as lost.
I think that there are plenty of help points for new users and those whoa re willing will actually seek out the information. However, those coming through applications should be supported by the application design itself. The problem with the "mentoring" is what a user expects from the mentor. I get asked to mentor all the time, but all I give is already transparent and freely available on the blockchain - most who ask for mentoring in my experience actually want votes.
Good point. I would be monumental indeed to try to succeed only through content alone. Time is very valuable and it must be appreciated and well spent. Investing in the community is the best choice long term. People put a lot of money in useless things, I can't see why not put them in something in which you actually believe in
A lot of the useless is attractive short-term, like junk food, it feels good now, but mid to long term there are costs no one wants to pay.
That is true, it takes will power to give up bad habits. And longterm thinking is not a forte for most people...But those who do manage to think ahead and cut bad habits, those are trully deserving of the rewards
Investment mindset by default requires preparing for an unknown future. I wish more would at least give it some thought :)
Thinking about the future is no brainer for me. You got to think ahead and have a plan. It is common sense to not let yourself being carried away by life's waves. But of course that this kind of mentality usually comes in time and after you got burned. Smart people learn from their mistakes and apply the change as soon as possible
It would be nice to delegate some RC to new users, just to get them going. As we've agreed on before, engagement is a truly important metric to measure Hive's potential success. As a community platform for social networking, if we don't engage more with each other, the platform would soon be dead, like Steemit as it is now, or maybe MySpace.
On that note, I think it's more than possible to get into Hive without having to buy in. It would definitely help in the long-run to make a personal investment, even a fairly small one, but if your financial situation doesn't allow for it, then buying HP is far from needed.
I remembered starting on Steemit a year ago, and it was certainly a slog to be allowed only a few comments per day with the SP that I had then. But slowly and surely, as I engaged more, and as I started to earn curation and (mostly) author rewards, it got my RC quickly up to a point where I needn't think of it anymore. That said, I was fortunate as I had really good for support from the community on my posts back then :-D
I agree as I started from zero here too, but most won't go through the same (fitted for themselves of course) process. The point I bought a little was the time things changed for me though, as my attitude shifted also. I bought only a small fraction (at the time) of what I already held.
It compounds quite fast and I have been surprised as I have watched people grow around me and them go from day 1 to veteran.
It really does! It brings a tear to my eye to see how fast they've grown. Certainly, depending on one's personal needs, powering up is pretty great idea in general. It's worthwhile to have some stake in something if you're committing heart and soul into it. Plus, it's a good investment for the future too, risk adjusted, as we'll see Hive's growth. Cheers!
I've been waiting patiently for RC delegation and HMT. If people think that Hive is neat with communities and HP delegations, just wait, things will get a lot neater
For a few dollars and relatively little programming knowledge, someone will be able to set up a robust decentralized community.
This is what I am looking forward to and then, all of the plugin services and applications to tailor their world to suit the needs of their audience. I see the future could be much like an application marketplace with limitless potential, all tied to the same infrastructure owned by us all.
Yeah. I'd be seriously in favor of RC delegation. That would let 0 or low funded Hive accounts play-and if they don't play nicely can be un-delegated.
You know how I feel about 'skin in the game'. I don't think it should be mandatory by any means, but I think it shows a willingness to participate and grow that 'starting from scratch' doesn't. For way less than a pack of cigarettes per week (per your earlier chart) newbies can actually 'make a stake'.
I'm going to include a link here. It's from Noon Notification and an article that appeared just today. The author thinks that the potential for longevity is the real reason to invest in a token, not ROI or short profit. He says 5 years is the absolute landmark and 18 months is just about as likely. Anyway I read it and thought you might be interested. https://hackernoon.com/antifragile-cryptocurrency-and-the-passage-of-time-c27f30wr?source=rss
A very low risk incubator :)
Add all the various forms of cigarettes (coffee, entertainment subscriptions, dining out..) and that made stake is potentially large. I do think that the reason there are so few investors in the world is that most don't recognize how much they actually have to work with.
Thanks for the link :)
Yeah, it is quite hard for new users to interact on hive due to the low resource credits.
That's why when I bring someone in to hive, I make sure I discuss the matter of Hive power and resource credits. Then after I offer them a delegation of 18.5 HP which costs 2 Hive on blocktrades only if they can actually make 4 quality content posts in their first week of joining hive.
That way I can make sure they are active on hive and can also easily interact. I feel the 18.5 HP delegation will be enough for them to post quality contents and also earn HP of their own. Not forgetting, I do advice they should set their post earnings to 100% power up for at least their first 2weeks or if they want their 1 months.
That's how I handle cases of resource credits for people I bring into hive, and presently I am looking out on 16 people.
Sounds like yo u have a good process. Out of curiosity, how long on average before they can "stand on their own two feet" so to speak?
3 months. If they can remain on hive for the first 3 months without backing off then I know they won't need much of my assistance after. I believe they will remain an active member of hive after surviving the first 3 months.
The only issue is to be checking on each of them to see how they are doing and motivating them to be active as you know most times hive can be quite hard and frustrating for new members.
I wonder if a person can't survive 3 months in something that is an investment opportunity, are they cut out for investment at all?
Checking in takes time for sure.
Yeah but most don't see it as that when they join.
As you said in one of your previous post, that people join hive because they want to earn and when it does not seem to be as they want, they opt out.
Since then, I have been trying to look for better reasons to convince people to join hive instead of using only the reason to earn. So, I don't just tell anybody to join hive but tell only people that I believe they love sharing contents, people like Instrumentalist, poetry writers, photographers and others. I look for those set of people among my friends and neighborhood, then tell them what they need to know (like literally everything about hive) before I give them the hive registration link. With that they can know what they are about entering into before they actually do but It is quite stressful though.
Everyone wants to earn, but like any earnings at all, work of some kind is required, whether it be at a checkout, a coder or a CEO. For a position of employment, the job is provided by the employer and the expected tasks are outlined clearly and designed to offer value, for example to their customers. Hive is different, everyone is "self-employed", meaning the tasks performed are up to the user. This means in order to earn, one has to define the role in a way to offer value to the customers, the other users. People need to think about what they are willing to offer the community and whether they are willing to take the path of an entrepreneur - Hive doesn't have employees.
#PoSh