Pheeeeeww!!What a hard emotional question @theycallmedan!

First of all, I guess it's pretty clear for everyone who's already on hive that we are a group of individuals who strongly believe in the power of decentralization, a community that strongly believes in freedom of expression and above all, the power of blockchain technology if used the right way.

For majority of us, that is what #steem was to us, until it wasn't so here we are.

I have always been a passionate content creator, before I discovered steem, I had a wordpress blog with over 5k avid readers. Never earned a dime from it, it was just a great outlet for my thoughts, interests and engagement with the online world. Imagine to my surprise when I discovered I could create content on Steem and get paid weekly!It was an opportunity of a lifetime, a no brainer that I had to get started right away.

They Say when you do what you love, you'll never have to work a day in your life.

What Does Hive Mean to Me?

It's unfortunate Steem could not live up to its mission and vision, which is what has led here. I tend to get very attached to things I truly believe in and Steem is one of those. I am still struggling to let go. It's like going back to that one persoan whom you know in the end they will hurt you, again and again, but it takes time to heal.

Fortunately though, Steem's failure has given birth something better, or so we hope. For me #Hive is a mix of many things;

1. An Opportunity to Carry on the Decentralization Dream

Given the current state of Steem, it's quite evident any hopes for a true decentralized platform has gone out the door. On the brigter side, hive is a community of individuals who believe in the true power of decentralization, being able to be part of something that could possibly alter live in future is more of an honor than privilege to me, hopefully we get it right this time.

2. A Rebound or a Fresh Start?

There's 2 sides to a coin. You can view hive as a rebound from #Steem's disappointments, or it could be your one in a lifetime opportunity to start over. I chose the latter.

Most of us missed out on the first day's of Steem. Though hive may not offer the same opportunities Steem did when it launched, we have a great opportunity to be pioneers of something remarkable when we finally hit mass adoption. Yes, that dream is still alive for me as I hope it is for most of you. I strongly believe great things take time, we just have to put in the work.Count yourself lucky to be here on time to build a brand and following before that happens, it's truly a god-given opportunity, not luck.

3. A Home..

They say home is where the heart is.

In as much as it hurts to leave Steem behind, after that hostile take over, it can never feel like home ever again. There are certain things (such as trust) once broken, things are never really the same. It's like living in a home where you are in constant fear of being attacked, your heart will hardly ever be there. A home needs peace, love & team-work to foster healthy relationships and progress, without which it is no longer home. Ever wonder why they say home is where the heart is? That's why.
For me hive is another chance to build a new home, as I continue to foster all the relationships I had on Steem. I have reached out to some of them,hoping to see them join me here to continue pursing this dream.

4. An Outlet..

I am above all else a content creator. I had been doing fulltime content creation for 2 years, until recently when I had to switch things up when Steem didn't recover as expected. The best thing any platform can offer content creators is freedom of expression. I think we have seen a lot of censorship on centralized platforms which is primarily what has pushed us to the blockchain. For me hive gives me the peace of mind to create without fear of censorship, it is an outlet for the kind of content I want to create, and it doesn't hurt that I earn tokens while at it. Win-Win.

5. A True Representation of DPOS(Delegated Proof of Stake)

In as much as DPOS is flawed, one could also argue that it works, and nowhere has this been adequately proven than on Hive.

Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) is a consensus algorithm developed to secure a blockchain by ensuring representation of transactions within it. DPoS is designed as an implementation of technology-based democracy, using voting and election process to protect blockchain from centralization and malicious usage.

While we were going through the #steemhostiletakeover, I was particularly paying attention to Dan Larimer & Vitalik Buterin to see if they would mention anything in regards to this because it's a topic they are constantly going back to. Here's a few of their comments that caught my attention.

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What Would I Like to See Hive Evolve into?

A Household Name!

Not literally, but a platform that anyone would know of, you know, like Instagram, or Tiktok just to mention a few. For that to happen, we need more fun dapps that are going to encourage content creators to create. The average internet user is not keen on creating long blog posts. The dynamics are shifting, visual content is what is selling the most. People are getting out of their comfort zones and putting themselves out there and consumers are eating it all up. Not many want to read 1000's of words,if Hive is to scale up, we need to be more visual.

Besides that, I would also like to see hive as the ultimate blockchain for #dapps. Where any developer knows that without a doubt Hive is the best social blockchain for their social dapps projects. This would greatly help us with mass adoption in the long-run.

Thoughts on a large funded DAO for future HIVE development?

This is probably going to be a very hot topic on this platform for a while. We don't have a source of funds for platform development so this to me seems like the most logical thing to do. While I am wary of it being subject to misuse, I also understand we cannot move forward if we don't mobilize resources to develop the platform. I have already seen 2 proposals that want to tap into this fund, which I strongly don't agree with. I feel it's still a little too early since we're barely a week into the platform, but I would be in support of a DAO ONLY if;

A Huge chank of the funds raised is used to go hard on marketing. This is something we barely hard on Steem. Users don't magically appear overnight,we need to create buzz/awareness of the existence of the platform. What % of this would go to marketing? How would we go about it as a community?

Specifications & Transparency on "how much is being spent where" ...It's worth to keep in mind the investors & the community might not have the technical expertise to determine how valuable some contribution is, which is primarily why I fear it maybe subject to misuse. How do we approve proposals and how do we determine their true worth?

Also, this post by @lordbutterfly had some very interesting responses regarding HIVEDAO & Approach to Funding!

For those that haven't the slightest idea of how DAO works,just remember this..

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Every DAO{Decentralized Autonomous Organization) is based on a smart contract — a code, which is fully transparent for anyone who wants to get acquainted with it by himself. Yet, when launched, it can’t be directly stopped, changed or transformed not in the slightest degree. All basic instructions and functions of DAO are impounded into code by its creator. When the profit from the investment is received, it is distributed according to the instructions the program possesses.
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