Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook is enormous, but it didn't start that way. What did it take to become the giant that it did?
Does Hive possess enough of the same elements that Facebook had, in the early days, to become a giant, too?
I don't think it only has enough, I think it has more. I'll tell you why, and you can decide if you agree with me.
'The Facebook', later to become just 'Facebook' because of a suggestion by the creator of Napster, started out as an idea to connect college students together. It was a closed community and only accessible to Harvard students.
Even Mark Zuckerberg's initial build to harbor the college students required a small investment from his best friend, and CFO, to run a server for a mere $85/month.
The multibillion-dollar company started with just a small investment of several thousand dollars. It spread from college to college and remained a closed community as it spread across the globe to colleges internationally.
Some of the key elements that made the project so successful were these:
A rockstar, and later, rockstars of development.
A broad interest by a large and exponentially growing community.
The ability to connect the community in a new and appealing way.
A loyalty that was created within the community as a result of the connection they found there.
Further funding (which in the case of Facebook was obtained by large investors).
An intuitive ability to serve that community with the things they wanted. (Facebook chose not to serve ads to its consumers until it had already obtained too much loyalty and mass adoption to be stopped).
Continued innovations to keep the project healthy and accommodate a further reach to all areas of the world, expanding beyond the initial closed community of colleges.
All these things turned a college 'basement' project into the multibillion-dollar company that Facebook is today.
The question is, does Hive have all these qualities, and in what quantities does it possess them. Based on these areas of Facebook's success, does Hive have the potential of an early Facebook, or does it have less/more potential?
Another question is this: Who will benefit from the success of Hive?
It certainly won't be a single entity, so how does this affect the promise of this project and the loyalty of the community it harbors?
Let's work through each point, one at a time, and see what we come up with.
Question: Does Hive have a rockstar/rockstars of development?
Answer: Yes! Absolutely. What's more is, the Hive project started off with a rockstar group of developers and is ever-growing, introducing new developers to the platform frequently. The power of appeal to new developers in this community is so strong, it pulls in new blood without the necessary costs of a salary.
Why? Because developers see the potential of this blockchain. When Mark Zuckerberg created Facebook, very few people knew about it. The opportunity to become an early adopter just simply wasn't there.
With Hive project, anyone can become an early adopter (for now). All projects that are built on this platform are worth something, and the success of even a single project within the blockchain could mean stardom for all the rest.
Think about it this way: If you play craps by yourself and roll for a number, your chances of winning aren't very good alone, but what if you and everyone else at the table were playing together - on the same team? What are your chances of success if only one out of all those people has to win, for you all to win?
Not only that, but new players are coming to the table all the time, and they get a roll too. You see what I'm saying? I think our chances are pretty good.
Next question:
Question: Does Hive possess broad interest by a large and exponentially growing community?
Answer: While Hive might not be growing as fast as Facebook, it has the potential to grow. This one is the one that all the hard-working developers and the rest of the community are striving for - the mass adoption of Hive.
I believe part of the reason why Hive has been a little slow to gain a larger community is a lack of simplicity. That simplicity is another reason why Facebook thrived. Blockchain and its communities are still very new, and much of the world is still very unfamiliar.
However, Hive's strong community of developers is working every day on new frontends and ways to make connecting with that world more familiar and easy. It's only a matter of time before one or more of those projects takes off and goes mainstream.
Next Question:
Question: Does Hive have the ability to connect a community in a new and appealing way?
Answer: Now, this was an easy one. BEYOND YES! Hive is incredible. Decentralized social media that puts the power to engage, thrive, and benefit through real personal ownership as a part of a community - full of life, intelligence, and personality.
A better question: What's not to like?
Next...
Question: Does Hive have a loyalty that was created in a community as a result of what they found there?
Answer: AGAIN, DUH! Hive has shown more loyalty from its community than any digital project I know of. It acts more like its own sovereign nation than a digital community of users, developers, and investors.
In this community, we have seen a massive hard fork take place on short notice to avoid the exploitation of our beloved group. Everyone pulled together in a commendable effort (which succeeded) and forked the blockchain from Steemit to Hive.
I read a post from someone saying, "One day, they'll make a movie about this." I agree, they probably will.
Next question...
Question: Will Hive have further funding (which in the case of Facebook was from large investors)?
Answer: Now this is where it gets really interesting for Hive. We don't just have the potential for further funding, BUT we are actually the creators of that funding, together.
How exciting is that? Not only is the funding created by the community as it grows, it doesn't need to have some centralized body to privately benefit from the work of others.
We have TRUE ownership.
Next question...
Question: Does Hive have an intuitive ability to serve the community with the things they want?
Answer: Oh come on! If it didn't, none of us would be here! This blockchain is ALL about serving its users and is poised at serving more. The developers of this blockchain are some of the most active in all of crypto, and they are going to reach the masses, and those masses will benefit from this community.
It's a win-win.
Next question...
Question: Does Hive have continued innovations to keep the project healthy and accommodate a further reach to all areas of the world?
Answer: Now, I'm beginning to feel redundant. Hive is not reserved to a closed community of colleges like 'The Facebook' was in the beginning. It is already open and available to all, globally.
We have many users from all over the world sharing all the things they love most, whether that is there key work in development, or blogging, videos, articles, photography, poetry, music, and humor we love and enjoy here.
There is a community for everything, and if there isn't, ANYONE CAN CREATE THEIR OWN!
Beautiful...
The Hive project has such huge potential because of the value it can bring to its users. There is no need for those ads to ever hit Hive.
Why?
Because there is enough value in the innovations of this blockchain to serve all, and the more it serves, the more it CAN serve.
Any thoughts?
Drop them in the comments below, give me a like, follow, and upvote, for Hive!
I completely agree with the narrative.
Apart from simplicity, we need to brong all dapps on one platform like on Facebook you can do everything from same server. While here every dapp has a different server, to which most people don't understand that tgey are just interface to interact with blockchain. I think turning point will be when we have a single interface connecting all dapps and providing user enhanced experience.
Regards
Dayyan
Now, that is a truly great idea. The ability to navigate through all different projects from the main hub. The other projects could still have their separate interfaces, but they would be easily accessible from the root - and simultaneously the root project would be easily accessed from the subprojects - linking them together and helping to increase the awareness of a single, larger, plural entity - The Hive Community.
Thanks for this great comment. :)
I think Hive has more potential than Facebook because social media on the blockchain is a total new game compared to internet-based Facebook. A blockchain-based platform gives more control to users than Facebook, which acts as gatekeeper of your data and the contents you generate. For a long time, Facebook has been monetizing and abusing user's data. With blockchain decentralization, that dominance and abuse are coming to an end!
Yes! That's the way! :) Another thing great about blockchain (and especially Hive) is that it has practically limitless possibilities. It may be a social media full of content, but it also has the ability to run applications, games, transact values, break into trading markets, SMTs and community projects. So much can be accomplished. The community doesn't seem to be leaving this platform any time soon, and with new people and developers coming in all the time, it'll be incredible to see what HIve has to offer in the future.
Thanks for stopping by and commenting! :)
Powerful read 😀
Ease of use of Hive is a big stumbling block I believe to the mass uptake we want.
I agree. The use of keys seems to be a killer just to start. I sometimes wish I could code, but my abilities there are highly limited, to say the least.
However, I do have sort of an idea that might help. What if developers could put together a small download package upon creation of a hive account. The download package would be a 'Hive Installer.' It would download the files for the user's new Hive keys and create a folder in a specific directory with the keys inside. Then it would download Hive Keychain and automatically import the account keys (with permission prompts from the user's API) into the Hive Keychain.
All they would have to do is click 'Install Hive Keys' and all the rest would be done for them. Single click, and they are in and able to access and use their Hive accounts with ease.
Do you think this would be possible?
I guess it would be possible just not sure about how safe it would be.
Yap really!
We've really got only one thing standing in the way of mass adaption and that's the lack of simplicity. The keys are just too off-putting for many.
Ya I had a recent onboarding that I delegated some stake to, but I don't think she ever made it past the keys.
I was thinking, (and I'm not a developer but I have some non-operational understanding of code), what if:
Upon creating a new Hive account the new user was prompted to download a 'Hive account' installer. The package would prompt the user's API and automatically create a directory in a specified folder with that user's new keys as a resource. Then, the install package would download and install 'Hive keychain'. After the download was complete the new user would receive a prompt from their system's API asking for permission to import keys into Hive keychain.
As long as the directory was created by the 'Hive account installer' it could be set up as the primary resource for Hive keychain to import the account from.
I don't know if this would work, but if it could, it would certainly make things easier when people signed up. They just tap a few 'allow access' buttons and they are up and running - able to interact and engage with Hive's community.
What do you think?
Regarding what Facebook has that Hive does not have, I just hope that Hive supports privacy options for posting in the near future (even if non-public posts will earn no rewards to discourage evil bots who upvote each other just to milk on the rewards pool), and end-to-end encrypted messaging option (we have the memo key, but its use is not supported yet).
Cool thoughts. I love the comments we're creating on this post. To state what there is a lack of is not a negative thing. It's positive because these things are possible and it reveals what needs to be done to achieve greatness... but that greatness is still possible. :) Thanks for commenting.