Our very own @yabapmatt wrote a post recently that unsurprisingly made it near the top of the trending tab.

https://peakd.com/hive/@yabapmatt/some-thoughts-on-the-future

I would summarize the entire thing with one quote:

Having everyone focused on making Hive the absolute best at one specific thing will give it a much better chance at being successful than if we have our relatively small community split between many different things (like we have now).

I agree!

It would be nice if we could get everyone on the same page and engage in some specialization to further stand out from the rest of the other networks out there. The only problem is... I don't really think that's possible... at least not in any way that we can control.

I don't think we can just get together and decide what our niche is as a decentralized community. Niches like this get selected by the network just by trying a lot of things and seeing what sticks. No one decides what's going to be successful, we just have to wait for it to happen.

Feature not a bug.

We couldn't even get enough network support to vote the top 20 witnesses against a centralized hostile takeover and retake our chain, even though we all saw it was easily possible right out of the gate. That's just politics. That's just how these things work, and it's fine.

Everyone is going to have opposing views. There is no way to make everyone happy or to get everyone on the same page. Diversity is a good thing.

Puke and Rally

Remember when JSun was wasting our time and talking in circles for hours about how we needed to allow the exchanges that attacked us to power down? Remember the outcome of those dialogues? Even IF we wanted to give him what he wanted, the time it would take to do so would extend longer than just powering down organically. I feel we are in the same situation today in some respects.

By the time a fundamental change was ready the push, the network would no longer feel compelled to make those changes due to this temporary fear that's been circulating. I say again: the problem is going to solve itself before we even have a chance to fix it, because these problems are imagined; at least the extent of their negative effect to the network is.

Most of the posts I see in reference to needing to change or becoming obsolete revolve around the idea that Hive will always be a Podunk social media site whose rewards can only be farmed through the blogging/vlogging frontends. Even worse are the ones saying we need to get rid of the reward pool entirely to reduce our inflation. Let me just stop you guys right there and say:

NO!

None of those posts have any validity because the underlying premises are just straight up false. People here want to work, and they want to have more assurances that they'll be paid a fair share for their work. Therefore, to assume that getting optional tips is going to be the end-all-be-all of this platform is absolutely ridiculous. We'll need a lot more vision than that as we stumble into the future. I guarantee it.

This is not a dead project.

It's not going to be a dead project, ever. I hope it does die because that means something superior was invented and we all got rich transitioning over to that network.

Not gonna happen.

Seriously, we can't lose. This is not MySpace or Facebook. Trying to compare a centralized social media with Hive is like trying to compare apples to farmland. Yeah, you can make apples on the farmland. You can also open a strip club. There are no limits. The stadium won't be empty forever.

Resistance is Futile

What I am seeing today is an absurd amount of sentiment that points to the "fact" that the system we are in today needs to be drastically changed (yet again) or we are going to get left behind. I believe this sentiment is fueled simply by Hive trading relatively flat while DeFi and ETH speculation run wild. If Hive was trading at $0.50 or more right now, I don't think I'd see even 75% of these posts talking about how we need to change things.

Centralization vs Decentralization

This is not binary, this is not true/false.
Everything is centralized and everything is decentralized.

When centralized death came knocking at our door; when we were truly in danger, this community rallied the likes of which I have never seen. Meanwhile, when we face a temporary speculative imagined threat, everyone seems to freak out. It's kind of cute in a way. This problem will solve itself. Time will pass. Pinky swear.

Do we all still remember the insane fear of Hive having to start over from ground zero and many thinking that we wouldn't get a single exchange listing? How did that all pan out again? First fork to have a higher market cap than the parent? Still rocking it. And we will continue to do so on the average.

Utilize the DAO to centralize

All this being said, Hive is extremely centralized in a lot of ways. We need a lot more devs, and it's very arguable that the core blockchain devs that we do have need to get on the same page.

I believe we can utilize the DAO in a centralized manner (ironic) to fund the development that we need to fund in order to push this network in the right direction.

But what is the right direction?

As @yabapmatt makes abundantly clear, we need more devs. We need tools and documentation. We need to simplify the process of learning and coding here so that more can join in on the fun without having to study something crazy and new like Solidity (ETH). So far, I'd say we're doing a pretty okay job with custom JSON and JavaScript and Node.JS and all that, but obviously we could be doing a lot better with a little focus.

Solution

The real solution here is to do nothing and stop fretting about it. We can't force people to do what we want them to do in these opt-in communities. We cannot pick the network's niche, that niche will reveal and pick itself when the time comes.

I've been saying for years that ETH's niche is DeFi, but look at all the devs there still trying to do everything. The overflow to other networks from ETH is going to be massive at some point. Surly, even Hive will benefit from that overflow at some time or another.

There's also the issue of cross-platform functionality and interoperability. Many of the top projects/games/whatever are going to get rich and start connecting their product to other networks. That's just free money/users for them. Again, all we have to do is wait around and we win. Of course we should all keep working hard for the great nation of Hive, but we don't really have to worry about controlling others in the long term.

Conclusion

We are in the midst of what I perceive to be once again the fear of fundamental flaws due to a lack of speculative gains. The two don't always line up (rarely do). We know this, yet we keep fretting over it all the same. Be patient, be brave, stay in your lane. Traffic is clearing... or should I say ETH traffic is becoming abysmal which will open the door for everyone else. Trickle-Down Theory is a real thing in this space.

It does not matter what direction we head in, it does not matter what path we take. I have many opinions regarding what direction this network should take, but in the end they are all irrelevant from a certain point-of-view. This community is zealous, and we will smash any barrier or threat that presents itself. Simple as that IMO.

Rollin, rollin, rollin, keep them kitties rollin, raw-hide

Having everyone focus on one thing doesn't usually work.
Many aren't interested in it. Most can't be gotten to hold interest for very long.

Thus you have to make on boarding of people that want to do that thing and help very easy.
But, this can be hugely detrimental, as saboteurs take the same tact.

There is no clear path to victory.
In fact, there is no clear victory.

So, we are going to need to create an environment where all things can be tried, and fall back positions can be maintained.

Lastly, there isn't ANYTHING that we can do that makes our chain stand out.
Everything we know of some other chain is doing best.
Thus, we have to do better at marketing or go in all directions until we find something WOW.

Finding The Niche & Herding Cats