Almost none of my IRL friends are crypto weirdos. A few have bitcoin, but don't do anything with it; just HODL forever. Most people I know are no coiners who know nothing or can't wrap their head around the concept of permissionless, decentralized, self-custody cryptographic protocols.
And that makes it hard to build a parallel economy. Can't have an economy with a party of one, can you?
One of my most amazing experiences was attending Talent Land in Guadalajara, Mexico with a bunch of Hiveans.
photo by @ecoinstant
photos by me
We had contests in crypto, we settled cab, hotel and restaurant bills with $HBD effortlessly and we made a bunch of content about it: blog posts, snaps, videos, web2 posts. Why? part of the reason was because we know sharing educational, informative and marketing content about
- The Hive booth at Talent Land
- The onboarding app
- @vsc.network
- Rebates with @distriator
- @hivedebit
All has value and sharing valuable content is rewarded with value on HIVE.
Value-for-value.
The new standard for freedom economies.
When I plug into web3, I'm surrounded by people at different stages of their journey to freedom.
Some are taking their first steps into web3 and others are OGs. I work with several crypto businesses and creators from around the world, moving bitcoin, Litecoin, @dashpay and a few others back and forth. So some people definitely get it, but it's a minority.
I understand (to a degree). It take's effort to get over the technological and conceptual learning curve and it takes EVEN MORE effort to do it over a long period of time, so it's no wonder people often dip their toes when there's hype and go back to normieland after a while where Venmo and credit cards work just fine, even though putting in the effort has much greater rewards.
I no longer try to bring people to the light either. People don't like it and I don't like it. If someone has a question and comes to me about it, I'll answer, but only if that's how it happens.
So I don't know.
Maybe this is the way it is.
Maybe we're destined to be the free minority who travels the galaxy and bump into other weirdos that use magic internet money from time to time.
Or maybe blockchain technology will evolve to the point normies are using it without their knowledge.
Who knows.
I'm just glad I found you weirdos.
There is also a third way of going about it and is to "hire locally". By locally I don't mean in your town, but I mean in your community. The Hive community is a global community that is also, for the most part, taken by real humans. So strengthen your relationship with them might also produce a sense of community.
Is funny how since the boom of AI (but even since Siri) a lot of people have grown attached to their digital partner. Making into a real life partner. Even Elon Musk turned Grok into a nice Waifu.
I'm not suggesting to marry a Hivian, but there are many under-utilized tools to reach Hivians that I found it funny why not more people try to connect beyond the blogs and the communities. There are some Hive-driven podcasts on Discord, (although I wish it was done on 3Speak instead), there are also activities like the one in my Anime Realm Group which take place weekly.
I think that building tools like a Hive-driven Zoom (this would have been possible back in the days with @hivestreams or @vimm). But there are also tools like Hive-Tube by @kencode to monetize streaming media. So a good setup and some open source service like mumble could make it so you have a video platform to say hi to everyone in the community and go from there.
I think there are many like-minded people online, and if they are available, you can share, connect and build together. There are so many projects that need attention and learning to code and promoting new tech is always needed and appreciated. Just take a look at Hive Projects and see how many things have been built or purposed that you can take over or even hire a team to revive or rebrand.
You can argue that you can't afford devs, but there are so many college kids that are looking for projects and will work for very little money. Sure it will not be the best quality code, but it can be way better than whatever you can produce, and the community might be very grateful for your contribution and even reward you with real money that can pay for a proper dev salary.
Yes, strengthening relationships with native web3 people is always rewarding. I've made amazing synergy with web3 natives over the past years. The problem is it's still a minority. The pool of web3 natives is much smaller than the universe of talented people outside of web3.
I usually spend my mornings on X spaces with web 3 shows. I can connect with at least 1000-5000 potential Web3 people that speak my language.
I know if I send them some crypto they will gladly take it and spend time with me if I need some consulting, or maybe just hang out.
It's all about surrounding yourself with the people you want to become.
It's not super up to date but you can tune in to any of these shows on X and follow as many people as you need.
I'll gladly join and hang out with some more web3 weirdos. Followed you on X.
BTW I am also part of IRL communities and spend time on meetups and dinners almost every week. Starting communities is a bit harder, however it is possible if you have the right tools. Using things like meetup, eventbrite, luma you can promote your IRL and decide if you want to organize a monthly meetup of Hivers or Web3.
I've tried to show them and to get them involved but it's so hard to get people interested.
Even when it's just a matter of posting content and earning crypto like they do on web2 apps every single day.
I thinks it's going to have to be a phone app that makes the breakthrough. One that feels so easy they don't even know it's on hive just log in with email and use it then see their wallet grow every day.
It's the only way we will get our mates to jump in when there is no barrier to entry.
Anything worthwhile requires effort and discipline to sustain that effort over a period of time. A lot of people don't exercise even though it's common knowledge that it's a habit that improves our lives in many ways. Blockchain technology has a bit of a learning curve, there's lots of noise and you have to be willing to go through some pretty drastic economic cycles too.
I guess it's not appealing to everyone in its current form.
It can be hard. A lot of people are happy with corporate social media as their friends and the celebrities are there. They may not really get what crypto offers and there is a lot of negative press about it. I would hope we can at least get more people on board who are already into crypto to build a critical mass. You need a bigger audience to attract creators.
I'm hoping for the same thing, though I sometimes wonder if it's realistic. More web3 users would bring more users and kick off a network effect. Everybody would benefit.
I guess time will tell.
Glad to find you too Mr. Weirdo!
Ditto. You're amazing.
Congratulations @web3creative! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain And have been rewarded with New badge(s)
Your next target is to reach 800 upvotes.
You can view your badges on your board and compare yourself to others in the Ranking
If you no longer want to receive notifications, reply to this comment with the word
STOPCheck out our last posts: