No engagement on this yet? It's been 9 hours. I'll be the first.
@unklebonehead, while I appreciate where your coming from, I do think some of this is off. I see Hive as an extension of Steemit. It's essentially the same platform without the bidbots. Most people who come to Hive come for the crypto. I think they leave because they show up with unrealistic expectations. A part of that is the fault of veteran Hive users who set up those false expectations with the false narrative, "Come to Hive, a Web3 paradise where you can earn crypto money for your content and no one can censor you." Truth is, as you say, most people won't ever earn much, but it isn't because they can't.
In some ways, Hive mirrors the real world. People have hopes and dreams. Some of those people realize their dreams and others don't. Why is that? Two reasons:
- Luck
- They play the game the way the game is designed
If you want to go to Hollywood and be a successful actor, you've got to fit into the culture. Hollywood has certain rules, many of them unspoken. The same goes for Washington, the business world, the world of poets, etc. If you go in shouting, "I'm going to take on the man and fight until I kill him," then you should expect some resistance. You're likely to be killed first. The man is bigger and more powerful than you are.
But if you show yourself eager to learn and develop a sense of perspective about the opportunity before you, there's a chance you could get lucky. I started out on Steemit in March 2018 under the name @blockurator. Soon after the hard fork, I lost the account keys. Boy, was I pissed! It wasn't because of the few hundred dollars I had earned in Hive Power that pissed me off. It was the potentially thousands of dollars worth of @splinterlands cards I had collected that I could have rented out or sold and earned a hefty reward on. I'm still pissed off at myself for being so careless.
I didn't join Hive again until December 2021. I've been on for two years and my account is now worth more than $1,500. That's only a start. Can you imagine what it might be worth five years from now?
Hive is not just a content creation platform. It's also a finance platform, and to make it work it helps to have some basic understanding of how finance works. That takes time, commitment, and a willingness to learn. And all of that is something that anyone can do.
One thing Steemit had was several groups of people who volunteered to help others learn how to navigate the platform. Hive has Hive Learners, but I don't know how effective they are. But that is very much needed to help new people to the platform learn about the culture and the opportunity.
None of this is to say that Hive doesn't have issues to solve. This post identifies a couple of them. I know people are leaving the platform as fast as they arrive, but that always happens during a bear run. During bull runs, people return hoping to make their bucks. Anyone who chases short-term gains hoping to succeed, whether it be crypto or fiat money, is likely to be disappointed. People who succeed at any endeavor, do three things:
- Develop realistic expectations
- Have a long-term plan
- And be diligent and consistent in executing those plans
I don't know why Hive hasn't taken off yet. I don't know if it ever will, but I'm not sure there is wisdom in obsessing over it. Is Hive in danger of dying? I see a lot of positive things here, things that I don't see on other platforms that purport to be decentralized, Web3 havens.
To be brutally honest I didnt expect any engagement on this post. After being here for almost 4 years of getting the same auto upvotes on every post. I'm completely used to zero engagement. About the only real engagement on posts I've ever gotten were if I boosted the post on Ecency or posted a tutorial video on 3Speak in their community. The tutorials usually get several comments and some pretty massive upvotes. But I've never been the kind of person that creates content for others. I do it purely for myself and my enjoyment. I either do that or I sit and talk to myself a lot. Lol.
I understand that Hive, as with other social blockchains, are inherrently crypto specific, topic wise. That is to be expected. But I and several others have been screaming that in order to attract more people on board we need to appeal to different people of different walks of life. But very few are actually doing that. They are instead only attracting more of the same. Increasing the amount of single topic content.
Attracting more of the same is only going to make that cycle contine and it will evenutally shrink because of loss of interest by new users. Hive is slowly turning into a single topic content platform. This is my #1 concern for Hive.
Yes Hive does have a ton of positive things right here right now. We have things other platforms are only dreaming about. But they arent being used because there is nobody here to use them.
The best ananlogy I can think of is the car manufacturing companies. We are building brand spanking new electric cars with some really great and amazing technology.
But no one wants to buy them because:
1 The cost of owning & operating it is too high.
2 The average person doesnt understand the technology behind it.
My whole overall point is that we are still doing and saying the exact same things over and over and not getting any results. We are shootin ourselves in the foot going in the same direction as we have year after year after year. It's time to make a hard right or left cause this is the wrong road.
We are almost to the point of needing to make a drastic change and we need to at least talk about these things before we get to the point when everybody wakes up and looks around saying "where did everybody go?" This way maybe they can look back and ask themselves if this might be why no one is here.
When I was on Steemit, there were several thriving non-crypto communities. Writers, photographers, musicians, comedians, and creators of all kinds interacted with each other, engaged with each other's posts, and had a great time building their communities. I don't see the same spirit on Hive, maybe little pockets of it. But there was something magical about Steemit. Then Justin Sun stepped in.
What happened after the fork to make Hive turn inward is beyond me. Maybe a lot of the people who were active on Steemit left after the hard fork and sought greener pastures. I've looked, and I don't see greener pastures. Hive can be a great place with a lot of diversity once again, but I'm not sure how to get there. I don't think any of the solutions I've seen are going to do it. I, for one, am not willing to give up on the dream.
That's the best place to start. Stephen King says the same thing. Instead of creating for others, create for yourself. When the time comes to create for others, you'll know.
Oh, I'm not giving up on the dream. I've got no problem saying when I'm frustrated or upset. I will take breaks now and then when I feel like I'm about to jump the shark. Sit back regroup and recoupe then go back at it again.
I'm trying to show musicians the power of web3 by bringing them over to HIVE, promoting Hive Open Mic and maybe teaching folks about starting up in the creative space like I have. I think blockchain tech has a lot to contribute to folks like these and I agree that it doesn't all have to be crypto talk; what to buy, what to sell, etc. I actually made a small stage to perform in real life with the hopes that I can organize events and make them crypto-friendly.
We'll see where this goes (if it goes anywhere at all). I'm willing to give it a shot.