Didn't know about most of these things except for BRO. Sadly these days i am too focused on what's happening around BRO.
A few comments about the rest:
- Vibes: WTF :P
- Hivewatchers: I consider their contribution quite valuable especially now, with the AI everything is more difficult and we need them
- DHF: It's about time they do something about it. One of the main reasons Hive's price is like that and a lot of people are feeling disappointed. I am posting and talking about this for years. From what i understand though, no actions yet just words. I will read the post that you mentioned and wait to see if anything will change.
Hive is a great place and needs to shine. Sadly we have a lot of people who are trying to take advantage of it and people with power and at the same time a lot of frustrated people who either leave Hive, or are inactive for long period of times or simply don't bother anymore.
In my humble opinion, Hivefests with like 50-100 people are a joke. Let's just focus on making Hive great and minimize all these cases above and if for once we have a common goal and actions more people will join and more people will also join Hivefests.
HiveFest used to have a lot more attendees, the issue is, why don't people go now? Some say it's due to the distance and cost, but tbh it's not too difficult to win a ticket, and if it's held near to ones home place it neighbouring country, personally I highly recommend people to go. Like this year in Malaysia, people went from Indonesia, and a couple even won the ticket. We also have quite a few active users in Singapore but they didn't go. That's a pity. The HF is open to everyone, and I truly think the human element is very valuable.
That said, Hive isn't perfect, as we all know and seen from recent events. After all these years, it still has areas that can be improved
The main reason people don't go is that they feel there is no point in going. Sure, you will meet new people or people you may have interacted with but it's just that. I prefer to use that money to go somewhere with my friends or family to be honest.
During the first hivefests, besides the fact that more people joined i also caught myself looking at how i can go and once i was about to buy tickets but last moment i decided not to. Everyone was really excited about meeting some people but above all, excited about Hive.
Nowadays, we are witnessing some of the effects of the issues we had and continue to have for many years. As a result, most people are out, others are inactive and don't really care anymore, there are a few projects going, most of which are taking advantage of the dhf. Thus, there is no excitement anymore for the vast majority of people. I really hope for some change