Nearly three hundred missing persons were removed from my list of those I follow. Some were inactive for over three years. No sense in hoarding people. Maybe we'll cross paths again in the future but I somehow doubt it.
Sorting this out took awhile.
Warning in advance: My brain is scattered.
Apparently, over the years, I followed a lot of noobs. Several low reputation/low account value silent types. I guess I saw something in them, probably tried to help, but it wasn't enough, and now they're gone.
I'm only one guy though; one consumer. They needed more than just me.
If someone signs on here to create and hopefully monetize their content, their success depends only on themselves and the effort they put in. Nobody else will do your job for you. That same unwritten rule applies to damn near everything in life. Even a freeloader has to find a way to become a successful freeloader and if they can't, it's time to move on.
Seeing so many content creators come and go isn't a sign of a flawed content creation and distribution platform though. It's normal. This is a tough gig. Most fail. Everywhere.
Majority of people are, content consumers.
Tough to fail as someone who simply kicks back, enjoys things, hits upvote buttons, earns a bit for that, and maybe earns a bit more for spending time in the comment section afterparty.
I can go on Youtube right now. There I'll see several channels I've subscribed to over the years. Majority have gone silent. Some even got to experience hundreds of thousands of eyes all glued to their daily grind. They keep churning out the same style, drift into a comfort zone, people lose interest, then the content creator is blaming algorithms and quits because a few thousand views isn't good enough anymore; yet the first time they ever got 100 views was the best day ever and they even made a vlog post about it.
Even though those folks quit, I'm still on Youtube enjoying videos, as a consumer.
Visiting Facebook earlier for research purposes; I discover the same trend.
A community with ten thousand members. Majority of them are quiet noncontributors. I still see a few daily posts but very little engagement. Granted the community is based around a seven year old PC game. Still, the entire community dies because the coordinators haven't found a way to keep things fresh and people focused.
Businesses dry up.
Out with the old, in with the new.
So now — but hopefully it'll be a little easier to pull off in the near future — someone can step up to the plate here on Hive, drag the market of thousands of people they managed to establish on Facebook, drop it into a community here, and monetize that shit; even with a little help from their very own token. Spruce things up a bit. Rejuvenate interest. Arrive fully equipped with content and consumers.
I'm surprised this far into the game here on Hive, content creators with their massive markets of hundreds of thousands of consumers haven't setup shop here, utilizing their following to establish a solid revenue stream, but I have a strong feeling they don't understand the business model, or don't realize you can develop one here on Hive, quite easily.
Instead some come here just to take. No comments under their posts. They don't even explain to their outside followings/consumers how they can now earn as a consumer by staking tokens, as a form of donation, then supporting the creator through the upvoting process, while sharing in the profits. They'd rather have their consumers "hit the like button" on Youtube or wherever, for free, and earn nothing, while being hounded for Bitcoin donations all day. Getting a 'return on donation' sounds like a far superior deal to me, as a consumer, and one hell of a fine way to attract far more money in the form of donations, if you're a creator, since consumers enjoy life when they're not being ripped off. Plus the entire ecosystem benefits, creating yet another revenue stream provided the process creates steady buy pressure, increasing the value of the token steadily over time. No more losing jobs, being deplatformed or demonetized due to "cancel culture" either.
Sitting on a gold mine and ignoring the nuggets. Brilliant!
I'm honestly baffled as to why so many independent online content creators spam twenty-some different platforms with instances of their content. That's like standing on top of a skyscraper, dropping a handful of pamphlets, expecting those papers to land in the hands of those pedestrians down there, and pretending they'd actually be interested.
I'd say majority of these platforms nowadays that pay in cryptocurrency don't even focus on attracting actual consumers and since the same instances of content can be found nearly everywhere, there's no real reason or incentive for the consumer class to find one place and call it home base.
The entire concept and benefits of exclusive content are lost on these people.
I mean, sure, technically these creators spamming every platform they can find are "monetizing" their product. A penny here, a penny there; but who's looking?
When I'm looking, I'm seeing low views and silent comment sections.
I'd suggest corralling all consumers into one profitable pen but they'd be too busy micromanaging nonsense over twenty-some different platforms to even notice any incoming feedback.
Boiling this business model down to the basics; even the street performer knows she's better off setting up in one busy place and just going for it until the crowd forms around her. That cuckoo dude with the banjo running up to each individual stepping off the bus, pulling the people into random back lanes, then attempting to play a song for them; he's five minutes away from being arrested.
The main reason why Facebook, Youtube, and even Google do so well is because they're all designed to be one massive community melting pot where consumers can easily browse smaller communities, groups, channels, content, comment sections, everything, etc. All in one place.
Some folks in the past complained the chaotic nature of a platform like Hive.blog (formally the S-word) is a major turn off. Keep in mind, many of those complaints came from disgruntled amateur content creators struggling to work hard at building their own dedicated consumer base, on a platform that forgot wasn't ready to market its consumer incentives. for over four years...
I was always fine with the chaos though and now with PeakD upping the ante I see it is a classic winning business model designed to grab consumer attention and keep it there. Even Amazon does it with retail. You want one main door every Hive consumer needs to use to get inside then once there, they become lost and never leave.
Muahahaha!
On average those consumers spend 7.5 hours daily browsing content online nowadays; and earn nothing but eyestrain.
Catch my drift?
From a business standpoint, as a content creator, I've always admired Hive and the possibilities/superior potential. Absolutely adore the fact consumers share in the profits rather than ripoff artist middleman corporate goons.
I also enjoy building puzzles or pretending I'm MacGyver.
So I understand, in its current form, Hive is much like opening the jigsaw puzzle box, then trying to figure out where all these pieces go. Or as a content creator it kind of forces me to make a bazooka out of a can of lysol, roll of gift wrap, box of matches, and a random spring I just so happened to find laying around.
Do you remember the early days of Facebook?
First it was a little chaotic social space, then it evolved and people could stumble into all kinds of strange little apps developed by independent creators to add to their profile, then eventually they scrapped that model and everything they thought you'd use like the social space, games, messenger, etc; it all just came standard in one tidy package.
People are convinced Hive will thrive focusing on building dapps/applications built on Hive.
Right now we have all these features of Hive and the future going off in every direction; much like this article right now.
People wanted a chat/instant messenger for four years, so a developer here finally released one. Nobody is using it though since it's not connected to a home base like PeakD, where majority of people heard the announcement.
Recently I stumbled into an introductory post. The woman telling her story stated she had been using Actifit for quite some time; didn't even know about this space.
@klye has been working on a dice game for quite some time and you probably wouldn't know that unless you know @klye.
Apparently there's a poker game called Lucksacks connected to Hive somehow. "More $ Paid Out Than ANY Other Game on Hive!" Poker was wildly popular on Facebook in the early days and still is. @lucksacks.com, "The longest running Steem/Hive game" has 253 followers here.
I'm just a guy who only works half the frickin' year and I have 4500 more followers than a Hive app?
"We're decentralized. Deal with it."
Every application could have a little 'Home' button that leads directly back to the main social setting majority of people on this blockchain have always used regularly.
Without simplicity directing traffic back and forth to a place where consumers can browse, every other application loses out on potential consumer spill-over. Every Hive application could be accessible in some kind of menu off to the left when I'm browsing the social feeds. Developers would benefit working directly with other developers, teaming up to tie everything together. Before the big announcement blog post gets published, a little icon with a 'New!' flag in the apps section could already be sitting there, waiting to be pressed.
Decentralization to me in its simplest form basically means no single point of failure. Disorganization and chaos causes several points of failure.
Easy access to all independently developed features of Hive within a social setting where actual people/potential consumers frequent is in my opinion the most valuable feature of Hive. Facebook, Youtube, Google; they all help prove my point. As for Amazon, well, interestingly enough, there are thousands of books available there, many have been on sale for years, collecting virtual dust; no sales. This article will get more attention than thousands of books today and that's all because it's published directly into a social setting or common area where people gather.
To Conclude
It's true, most people are not content creators. That's how this post started. Pointing out the fact many were lured here thinking a basic social media status message would pay them the big bucks. Then they don't stick around to fill a more suitable role like consuming content in order to earn rewards, playing games, finding out they can earn a few bucks for walking around, plus more, etc. We're all consumers of something and many who failed or simply don't feel like creating content wouldn't completely vanish if the other features were sitting there ready to use, explained in detail, and easily accessible.
Content (arts, entertainment, information, games, all of it) in it's various forms has a tendency of attracting all walks of life and plenty of eyes. Those consumers also bring their disposable income with them and I heard somewhere cryptocurrency projects are always looking for new investors; but I could be mistaken.
Point is: It's wise to make their lives easy.
Anyway...
No. I don't want to be supreme leader of Hive. I'm just a guy who really likes the place, even if it is a total clusterfuck...
"For now."
I think a lot of people aren't coming in because crypto is absolutely a scam, no other option is possible, and they're infinitely too smart to be tricked into falling for something like that.
I've watched some Youtube with my kids and have seen some of them laughing at people who are trying to get something out of them and offering shitcoins as payment (either actually a scam or trying to use a big name to give some legitimacy to said shitcoin) so I'm not that surprised with that rep/attitude.
And then other times it's just hard. I'm super slow with the onboarding thing and I have to check in with the latest artist I'm encouraging on but last I heard they'd been having trouble with the signup process and given that it's supposed to be easier than it has been previously I'm kind of wondering how many people are failing before they start even now.
Some people do have an irrational fear of legit crypto projects, due to some others being shady.
Another reason why I think the social space here is important. Browsing content in it various forms isn't a concept that's foreign to people. Socializing is normal and it's not like everyone here is trying to cram outrageous promises of potential wealth down the throats of all random passersby. People sit on these devices all day, browsing regular forms of media, earning nothing in the form of compensation for their time. The real scam is zoning out into a device all day and getting nothing in return. At least here, people get something, and one can't really fail at leaving comments and hitting 'like' buttons.
But yeah I guess if they can't even get in the door, we're fucked.
Same here. I'm missing a lot of people.
They got frustrated, bored, angry, frightened, and finaly silent.
Not sure of the exact number, but a majority of the folks I cleaned off the list barely got off the ground. Many of the people who remain have been around and active for quite awhile, plus there's some new faces on there. On a few occasions when I was digging around to check for activity, I noticed folks had powered down completely, therefore no RC, and the tokens are just sitting in the wallet. Some have been sitting there like that for years. So even if they did want to kick back and earn by consuming/curating... they can't.
You have a good point here.
No matter how good the system is, it will never keep 100%.
Glue is not the answer. It is what it is and it is not that bad.
Majority don't give it enough time off the start, it seems. But yeah it's meant to be difficult, not easy. Several would earn more by purchasing and staking, comments, etc. That's far easier. Most of the current crowd of creators are dying for an audience. Some just post, collect, don't care. People coming and going is natural behavior in the end.
I think if you pulled 10k accounts from a Facebook group like I said in the post, set that same group up here, but now everyone can earn, those people would be interested, but they can't be lured in with the promise of riches. But if 10k more content creators come, without consumers, there's not enough dedicated consumers here to support them. So that's why I bring up consumers and point out how important they are. The focus has always been to attract more creators. I view that as a big mistake.
Converting existing communities into Hive communities could work. But I'm not sure if you get Facebook communities converted. Facebook's glue is strong.
This is definitely the wrong signal. This attracts people who leave just as fast as they came.
I should also add, the consumers need to know it takes money to make money, but if they're directed to throw money into an unproven and new token, for a simple community, it becomes a tough sell. With the Hive token in place as is, they can get a feel for things first, buy some Hive, get a better feel, then move over to another token of their choosing, if that's how things are going. I don't really see that working out though and I realize its an unpopular opinion but still, I'm unsure if folks around here are looking at things from every angle. Hive and the reward pool helps get things off the ground, in these scenarios, and that's important. Nobody wants to gamble, they want to get set up first.
That's what I thought the communities were for! LOL! But instead we took an already tiny market, then split it up into way more and far tinier sections. Facebook didn't have groups like that until it was sustainable, and they flourished. The content on Facebook is CHEAP though. But I imagine 100 out of 10k would probably be able to keep those 9900 people occupied. Now, they probably wouldn't be making the big bucks, especially off the start, but in most cases, one individual earning ten cents is far more than the entire group earned over the span of many years. This isn't a tough sell, but like I said in the post, doing it now is somewhat confusing.
Another concern I have is the talk of the Hive token being stripped of functionalities, including the reward pool going away. And these communities of the future would then be on their own, with their own token, and that would be a disaster for 99% of people who tried without some kind of a lifeline to help get them started.
I'm not sure if there were a concrete target audience when they designed communities.
This is the bitter truth, yeah.
In theory, this won't hurt your HIVE assets. But I am not a fan of it either and I don't think we will see that
anytime soon.Pretty much hit the nail on the head here. You can still have a lead development team who have a communal vision on what they want this place to become and still be decentralised!
I don't know if you have spent any time on Leo but the way things are run there are kind of how I envisaged Hive would be like with the rewards system if there was a drive to make it happen. The consumer rewards are always overlooked but is that because the HIVE project is just overlooked as a whole because there's no dedicated, proper marketing team? Or is it because everyone in the world bar a couple of million (at most) haven't come across cryptocurrencies and don't trust anything inherently "crypto-y"?
Just throwing out questions here, not saying one one scenario is right vs the other.
I've spent a small amount of time on LEO. As a consumer, having to travel from place to place is rather distracting, so I still prefer PeadD, but I have checked out the LEO platform/app. Now imagine how much a consumer nightmare it would be having thousands of those platform/apps, with no connection. If not for PeakD I wouldn't even know about LEO. Much like how I didn't know about the poker game. And several continuous random blog posts about a poker game would be about as annoying as having the success of LEO being crammed down my throat constantly. That was a lighthearted quip. I respect what they've done, a lot.
Yes LEO is doing well. Watch what happens when the well dries up and the severe lack of dedicated paying consumers problem comes into the equation. Can't depend on speculators and irrational markets to drive interest in a platform that delivers an actual sellable product. Simply look at Hive if you don't believe me. But I know you believe me.
Marketing is important, but tell me, my friend, how I'm to explain the future to anyone, if the future isn't set in stone. Four years and all we're doing here is fiddling with knobs and moving the goalposts around. I can't sell something today that is going to change in four months and bring on an entirely new set of unforeseen circumstances.
Those consumer rewards are CRITICAL and the masses will be consumers. Everything here is developed with the hopes it will be used.
People do not care about the fundamentals of crypto. When Facebook releases Libra, plenty of folks will simply use it. We live in a bubble and love crypto, forgetting most people couldn't care less. They just like being entertained. The surface. Nobody cares about how the core of the planet creates a magnetic field that protects from interstellar wind or some shit. They just live and breathe.
Sorry man I'm rambling away again.
There's a lack of trust in crypto. Those folks come and see crypto being crammed down everyone's throats and it sometimes looks like a crypto cult. Maybe they just want to watch videos or look at pictures. Something they can relate to. Dude, why is music struggling here? Lack of consumers. We both know everyone loves music. Without an audience, there's no musicians.
Consumers need a main home base, and a token everyone spends their money on to get a taste of the action. Then from there that consumer money spills over onto the second layer. It needs to be connected like that in my opinion, when I look at the entire picture that for the most part hasn't been painted yet, or it won't work. Just look how the disconnected experience negatively affects us now. People signing up to splinterlands. Do they all know about the other games, or PeakD? When everything is connected the money travel freely, creating a much easier path to success as a whole. There's healthy competition and then there's the ball hog who would rather try to score all the goals himself, leaving the team behind, and losing the game for everyone.
Your ideas about un-"clusterfuck"ing Hive with respect to dapps/apps was the most interesting to me... It has long been a mystery to many of us here, as to why those developers can't or won't integrate their 'useful' and desired creations in a manner which simplifies finding them to make use of.
Anyway... Hope all is well with you.
I don't know what it is, or why. Other than that, I'm doing fine, I suppose.
It's nice to hear that you suspect you're doing fine @nonameslefttouse, therefore you probably are well enough to endure the current freak show with minimal negative effect.
It's hard to sit back and watch complexity take over while so many features are intended to be used by simple folk.
I've spent a few weeks now focusing on the consumer experience. It's a disaster and everyone working on projects needs to set a standard early or they all shoot themselves in the foot.
I can understand your frustration with those who fail to grasp the value within simplicity and suspect that ego may be the culprit at times. Purposeful complexity often leads to a convoluted, mess of things...
Thanks, you've answer lot of questions for me... But I have more... My first one is:how do I know how much my vote is worth?
https://peakd.com/@hauptfleisch
There's your profile on PeakD. If you hover over the 'i' icon you can see your vote is worth 0.001.
People need Hive Power in order to increase the value of their vote. Did you know you earn as well when voting for content?
Yes. In fact, I thought that was the only way to earn... I am planning to buy hive and a mate sent me about 50 hive. My account is worth about 80.000 hive, I quite often post stuff but I don't know many people yet, although I've just bumped into the Italian community... I'm looking for a German called Sera, do you know him? Thanx for your reply😊
There are several ways to earn. If I was to begin explaining this, I'd be here for an hour and you'd still leave feeling confused. So you have a bit of Hive and plan to get more, so once powered up your vote will be worth more, which means you can tip more, and also earn a larger share of the profits from that content once it's paid out in seven days. Then I can explain how, if you like STEM content, you can visit their app, buy their token, and do the same with Hive. Or if you like financial content, you can visit that app, buy their token, and earn the same way as Hive. I could keep talking like this and you'll see how ridiculous it becomes for the average consumer to actually enjoy things and earn a bit at the same time.
As for earning by creating content. It takes awhile to build a following that'll support your work consistently. Several of us, myself included, managed to do it though. It's not something I can teach in a few sentences though. Most serious content creators already know what to do.
I do not know this German you seek. Or maybe I do. I don't know. I've met thousands here over the years.
i totally agree with you... there are so many things going on hive and its tokens that i have completely lost track of what's going on.
A good idea that poped now in my head would be a daily/weekly kind of a "digital newspaper" that informs the readers of all the later news on hive and its tribes! i don't have time to implement something like that though only take part in it
There's a tiny little hidden feature on PeakD, under the "Feeds", at the bottom, "Chain News." I had been suggesting something similar for months, here and on Steem. Accidently stumbled into Chain News, yesterday. There's a lot little hidden features on PeakD. Some of the games are stashed away in the wallet tab.
Great minds think alike, or maybe twisted ones :P
I don't use PeakD at all, i use the interface of Hive (maybe i am old school who knows :P) so i am not familiar with chain news at all. Do they update it or inform people about the news and stuff or it just exists :P
It's basically just a feed of reblogged posts. I'm sure there's far more actual news going unnoticed or difficult to locate and keep up with.
yep this has no point, even for some reblogged posts with announcements it would be better to just have a daily or weekly newsletter/post or something that briefly gives you the information you need + links to see the actual posts if you are more interested.
There is no doubt about that. For example, i had no clue of what you mentioned in your post, like the poker game etc etc In Leo were i spend most of my time nowadays we got hot news mostly everyday not even weekly :P
...f- word. I meant to place this post in LEO. With everything becoming so distant and segregated now, hard to find a place to put things. That was a dumb move though. I know where LEO is...
Can I even post there from a place like PeakD or Hive.blog? Or do I have to travel over there, then come back to this app?
Leo made a couple of days ago, maybe yesterday something like what we are talking about but only for LEO, you give your mail and they send you a newsletter! but not even close to what we are saying!
Now regarding your question, i think that if one of your first 5 tags is leofinance then it automatically goes there, can be seen and you can earn leo if for example, i vote it from there!
When you write your next post and wanna have Leo in your tags give me a shoutout in the post,or comment section or even here (i will probably see it but just in case) and i will tell you for sure :P
A few of the developers are beginning to understand that there is a pretty large group of consumers on Hive, and are trying to make things easier on them, such as PeakD and LeoFinance, and STEMgeeks. I have seen a lot of people try to get a centralized point for news but so far most do not get much traction.
It takes work, a lot of work to try and find out what is new, and where to find new things. PeakD does a good job of highlighting the games in the wallet when they are up and running and do not appear to be schemes or scams. But the people that use Hive.blog and the wallet from there or any of the other wallet tools won't see them. I really don't see that as a problem, just a growth point for PeakD in that the game makers may send people to peakd and peakd to the game makers a win for both.
Well breakfast calls, so i may or may not finish my comment.
Yeah. I'm done talking about this stuff anyway.
It's been 3 years since I've started working on the original steem-roller.com game which is now defunct.
As it sits it's spiritual predecessor Hive-Roller.com is getting near a stable enough state for me to start advertising the damn thing. I do appreciate the mentions though. <3
Cheers captain!
Okay so then I'll simply suggest an "Early Access" section as well, for you folks developing, but not quite finished, but could still benefit from random product testers and general feedback. That should also be right under the consumer noses.
I've been meaning to try that game. Not much of a gambler though.
Yeah.. I'm pretty vocal that "this is alpha testing" because it is.. In no way shape or form is it a finished product however it is useable.
Investing might be more of your schtick then if you're no gambler.. Generally slower and safer returns.
To be honest, most days, I hate cryptocurrency.
I arrived many moons ago, as a content creator. Four years later and the consumer base only shrunk. Not good for business, my friend.
Yep.. Noticed that trend as well. Started to branch out away from graphene based blockchains here in the past few weeks. Needs to be done, the pool here isn't large enough to support most businesses anymore.
Right. Because no focus is placed on consumers driving up the market value. Why create a product and refuse to sell it? Content generates revenue everywhere else, because that content is placed in front of a paying audience. People spend all day on devices, consuming shit and earning nothing for their time. They'll gladly do it for free and hundreds of millions will gladly spend their disposable income on it. They've burned through billions of dollars and never once got a return on that. This business model here is incredibly disruptive in the entertainment industry and I feel like I'm crazy now for even noticing, while so many other seemingly don't.
Blah... calm down nonames....
Yeah.. You're basically right on the money there imo.
You're not crazy for noticing the trend, in fact you're more sane than the ones not noticing this.
Just here to consume your penis content.
Comment comment comment.
You're a fuckin nutjob LOL!
I'll take that as a compliment to the highest degree imaginable.
That's what excitement looks like when you're prepped in advance.