We're nearing one week on Hive. Those who have followed me over the last couple of years will see mostly complaints. This is the first time in a long time, I'm feeling neutral - optimism is still a ways away though. After being through disappointment after disappointment endlessly in a downward spiral since 2017, I really was skeptical the community will rally together and make this happen. But they have, and it's been very pleasantly surprising.
I spent a lot of time on Steem in 2016. Indeed, at one point I was among the top 5 most active members on the blockchain. I gradually slowed down over time, and by early 2018, I was a mostly inactive Steemian. I divested off STEEM over the course of 2018 - having made the terrible mistake of being all powered up during the euphoric altcoin rally. But I was never really gone, I would still pop up from time to time, just to remind how terrible Steem was and how improvements were desperately needed. I would have my phases, probably during phases when morale was at an all time low, where I'd show up and make a few blog posts, but by and large, that was it for me. I took my social activity to other platforms which were actually... social. I really wanted to be on Steem, but it just wasn't any good.
What has changed with Hive? It still is a terrible platform, just as terrible as Steem was before it. But the shadow of the Steemit Inc ninja mine has finally been lifted. That improves the tokenomics right away. I've been impressed with Blocktrades' work on SPS, so I'm cautiously optimistic development will be improved over Steemit Inc. There's a long, long way to go, and it remains to be seen if development does improve, of course.
Right now, I'm enjoying blogging again, but engagement is very minimal at this time, so it's not really rewarding. At least while the lockdown lasts, I remain committed to Hive and contributing with content and curation, but without solid improvements, I'd probably lose interest once again over time and move to better platforms.
So, I'd like to see the complete and radical overhaul I have been calling for for the last few years. I'm patient, I know it will take several years to make Hive a bonafide social platform, but I'd like to see steady progress over the coming months.
In a nutshell, Hive, for me is - unfinished business. Whether I get to finish what started four years ago, remains to be seen.
Short note about the price - I wouldn't pay much attention to it. I'd expect it to remain inflated in the short term while liquidity is very limited and a lot of people are migrating (powering up) from Steem. The tokenomics are still degenerative, and over the long term Hive will continue to lose value versus BTC (save for the short altcoin pumps and dumps) until the economics are improved. I've talked about this a hundred times, so I'll cut it here.
Yes. The lack of dedicated consumers is a problem. Most folks show up and want to share content, then sit back and wait. Wait for what, I don't know. It's difficult to respond to random pictures. It's hard to get to know anyone, based on their content, if one is stumbling into it for the first time. Seems to lack personality.
Even my space has been quieter than usual. Which is odd. It's the lack of dedicated consumers though. If only people in the outside world knew they could come here, purchase a few tokens, pass around a bit of wealth, reward themselves, and get paid to be entertained. I've always said that concept is an easier sell than 'get paid to create content' or whatever. Of course, if the consumer is going to pay, the content needs to be something someone might buy or subscribe to. I firmly believe those millions of potential consumers out there who already spend the money would help contribute to a stabilizing economy. Consumers spend billions on entertainment. This business model here provides them with a better deal.
Well put, the lack of consumers is definitely an issue. The problem is consumers aren't going to buy in to a highly inflating economy in the long term. This is clearly evident from STEEM's continuously degenerating price versus BTC over the last 4 years. What they may buy into, though, are individual blogs or content hubs. Patreon, tipping and subscriptions work. What I'd like to see is a gamified social network with a decentralized advertising and tipping model. Inflation-funding has failed. I've written about this in the past, but hope to expand more on it in the future.
I wrote about a method of delivering ads way back when bidbots were destroying, things. I wanted to see the bots stop voting for actual content, and start voting for ads published in a subsection where the publishers compete for top slots, then the content producers choose a couple ads before publishing actual content, then take a share of the revenue. It's far more complex than that, but I don't think that will happen now. There would be a better approach anyway, not using paid votes. I just wanted those damn votes to be used for something useful. That was a wasteful era.
Tipping I don't like since one could tip forever with votes. It's not uncommon for an online personality to have 10000 followers who would tip. Do the math. How much Hive does it take for a vote worth 2 cents. That wouldn't be expensive. So then multiply those tokens by 10000 followers. You'll discover it doesn't actually take too many successful personalities to outpace inflation. Tipping is basically buy one token and that token then gets sold. It's tough to say if that would ever create a steady demand for the token.
I don't think it's all that complex to build a decentralized advertising system. Voice is attempting to do something similar. I have no faith in their execution, but the concept is sound. BAT has been doing pretty well, though again, a lot of development ahead.
Like with advertising, obviously you can't shoehorn tipping into the current system, it obviously won't work for the reasons you point out. I mean a complete overhaul of the system where there's no longer inflation-funding or a common reward pool. But more on that later.
I'm fascinated with this current system. I'd probably have a lot of opposition attempting to bring my crazy ideas to the table. If I had the big following and maybe a "SMT" I'd be able to demonstrate the consumer driven model. Unfortunately, all I have is dreams and a pile of art I don't know wtf to do with...
SMTs and consumer driven models will definitely be compatible with the new system I'd like to see. There's always an audience, no matter how crazy the ideas are... (And since you're one of the top authors on Hive, yours are evidently not crazy enough :) )
I will go crazier!
I don't think the price matters to genuine creators - those who want to feed and flourish from their crafts, sure, but most creators I know (myself included, in particular, when I do my photographic work, as opposed to gaming content) - I'm doing it for the reward of the endorphins I procure through the act of creation itself.
Most truly creative people (who need to scratch that itch like its... a hive?) will create, whether there's an incentive to do so or not.
As a result, we see this throughout the creative industries with photographers, musicians, artists, writers, performers, dancers, all asked to "donate" their skills and craft for the benefit of others.
This blockchain has the opportunity to change that, through the patronage that repeated upvotes can bring to the typical starving artist.
It's only a number of days until I start downvoting posts about the platform, to return to the rewards pool what should be there for creators. The proposal system is there for developers, and the witness rewards pool is there for creators. Witnesses, devs, and people who want to commentate on the platform and its economics itself should do so, but be responsible and support genuine creators such as those I've mentioned earlier, else we'll be in the same position on Hive as where we were on Steem - stagnation and creators leaving the platform because the ROI on their time (even though they're still creating) did not make any sense.
I've got a friend who is like that - she's just too busy to post her artwork to the chain, but she's unrelentingly prolific in her creation.
I won't say the price or rewards don't matter, but there's no doubt that the primary motivation for many creators is to reach out to an audience and build engagement. Some call it social capital. There are, of course, some creators who don't even care about the audience, and only want to create.
Blockchain technology definitely has potential to bridge the gap between creator and audience, but the Steem/Hive system is definitely not it. BAT is doing a slightly better job of it, but is rather flawed too. (Though to be fair, they have a plan and it's in active development)
Which better platforms ?
Reddit is pretty good. Your experience will vary based on the subreddit you're active on, but by and large, there's always good engagement in the topics I'm interested in. I also follow some people on Twitter, but am not too engaged there. Don't get me wrong, these platforms have many flaws themselves, but they are active with large engaged users for good reason.
Hive is unfinished, but I have a lot of optimism here. First, because we are no longer stuck waiting for STINC to get off their lazy asses and improve things on the flagship portal, and second because I finally switched to SteemPeak on STEEM thanks to Justin Sun, and PeakD for much of my Hive activity. The Peak team has done some good work.
Yes, definitely a fan of the Peak frontends.
I'm cautiously optimistic. If there's anything Steem has taught me, just when you think things can't get worse, they somehow do... There are some good devs here, but let's see if they can continue iterating relentlessly.
I love the way you stand your ground as criticism is as relevant as idealism. We won't get far until we actually realize what's wrong.
The thing is that we desperately need more people, but i assume people will come once the price increases.
Incentives are to low atm and we will need a lot of work before we reach decent userbase.
Hopefully you wont lose interest and will help in building our new home :)
The problem is that the price is high only for short periods of time, and people usually get complacent. Anyway, let's see how it turns out.
I remember you supporting my film and gaming posts back when I was still relatively new to the old place. I always really appreciated it and it certainly helped me push forward and maintain my presence on the network. I noticed that you had slowly moved back from it all, especially when reading those posts about how you felt about the network's technicals, so I'm really happy to see that you're enjoying writing again, especially now that I'm capable of giving something back.
Going back to this, I actually noticed engagement decrease for me once the communities rolled out. It seems few go through tags now and most stick to the communities they're in or search for content through them rather than tags. I've been trying to combat this a bit more lately by going through the tags as I usually would and curating, rather than just going to specific communities.
With the split, it's definitely a little bit quieter around here, but things are still quite early, though I have seen a slight increase in people curating. Then again, Hive Keychain (from what I know of) still isn't available to install with a simple click, so I'm sure some are still cast out a bit.
Also can't forget the pandemic going on at the same time, and I'm sure for some they're more interested in being with family or spending those 16~ hours a day on games, haha.
I'd like to see a lot of change, too. One thing worth noting is that now we don't have Steemit Inc just acting in their best interest, then the community's. It should be a lot easier to get things heard. I'd be interested in seeing a proposal from you go forward in the future.
That's good to hear. I helped discover and curate hundreds of great content creators back in the day. While most have left the platform, it's always great to see that some are still around.
Yes, it'll take some time for things to settle down. For now, I just want to contribute actively and see how things go.
I was positively surprised about the strength of the community and am now more optimistic than before that Hive can develop from here on in a positive direction without Ned and the burden of Steemit Inc. It's not perfect but a huge step forward in my opinion. And the community showed real strength in crypto space and made history.