Hive news feed vs WEB2. Mind control

Where attention goes, energy flows. I don’t remember who said it, but it’s 100% true...

I’ve come across discussions on the platform claiming that the subscription news feeds on Hive interfaces work poorly—that they fail to retain new users and do little to capture and hold attention. I fundamentally disagree with this and will try to present some arguments below to explain why I think so.

I believe the current news feed is ideal, as it allows me to choose what I want to see and what I don’t.

I don’t want to be part of an experiment aimed at dumbing people down. I don’t want to be kept on any platform using "relevant" content. I want to control my information field as much as possible. I’m an adult, capable of deciding what to watch and what not to.

Why does someone decide they have the right to recommend to me what might be interesting and what might not? That’s how it works on YouTube, as well as other popular apps like TikTok or Instagram. I don’t use Facebook at all, but I assume the system there is similar.

Web2 is focused on maximizing profits, and from their perspective, what they’re doing is entirely justified and part of their business model. The problem is, I’m not part of their business model—I made that decision, and it’s my choice.

I don’t need recommendations on what to watch and what not to, unless I specifically ask for them. I’m perfectly capable of determining that for myself.

You are what you consume

This expression originally referred to food (I’m sure you’ve heard it before), but now I assert that it fully applies to informational consumption as well, which has already been proven through scientific experiments. I also observe it in everyday life, watching people around me.

I’m confident that most of you know how the Overton Window works, so I won’t explain it here. If you haven’t heard of it, look it up—it’ll be quite interesting.

Let me give you an example.

I don’t mean to offend anyone with this example, and I’m not judging anyone—your sexual life is your personal business. I don’t judge people based on their preferences in the bedroom; I have entirely different criteria for evaluation. That said, I am categorically opposed to any form of propaganda promoting non-traditional family values, especially when it targets individuals who are not yet fully formed, such as children and teenagers.!!!

Let me provide an example of how the Overton Window works in the pornography industry—specifically, on porn sites. A young person (a teenager or a man) opens a porn site and starts watching the "current suggestions to view." Here’s one position, there’s another, one setting here, another setting there; the number of participants changes, as do appearances and decorations.

At this moment, the body experiences a massive hormonal surge—a flood of chemicals, like a factory suddenly operating at full capacity. Perception becomes heightened in the moment: one part of the brain activates fully, while another part (the one responsible for filtering information and determining what is acceptable and unacceptable) either shuts down or reduces its function to a minimum.

What happens at this moment? — That’s right, a "recommended" video appears, something like, "And here’s another way to do it." For example, instead of a man and a woman (which the user initially searched for), it’s a man-woman-man scenario where things happen chaotically. The Overton Window cracks open.

Due to a certain state of consciousness, this information bypasses the barrier that would have otherwise filtered it out in a different situation. The initial internal reaction at this moment is ambiguous, but the information gets through—this is the first step, a weak denial or resistance.

With systematic exposure to similar "recommended" content in comparable situations, the influence intensifies. Step by step, such exposure will gradually open the Overton Window until, at some point, it becomes normal.

Perception shifts from "unacceptable" to "this is already normal." From that point, thoughts change, and accordingly, so do desires and actions. This is how "recommended content" can reprogram a person’s desires, and it’s deeply troubling.

You’ve probably heard about how social media platforms have been used as tools to influence elections in different countries around the world. There have been huge scandals about this—buying ads, recommended content, and so on. It’s a very dangerous tool for influencing people’s minds. If someone watches videos with idiots from morning till night, they won’t even notice when they themselves start to act like idiots. This is an exaggeration, but that’s roughly how it works.

So, either we control what we consume informationally, or someone else does it for us. I prefer to control it myself, how about you?

What is the difficulty of the Hive news feed?

The only difficulty lies in the setup, and the only thing required for this is some time. When a new user joins the platform, they have no followers, so the feed is empty. This creates a kind of information vacuum. On Web2 platforms, new users are offered to choose interests from a pre-selected list, and this is how companies try to quickly fill the informational vacuum. After that, a "recommended" content attack begins, and the user becomes an informational "addict" or a consumer of the "right" content, all for their "benefit" and to keep them on the platform as long as possible.

Here, two factors collide:

• User attention equals money for the company.
• Retaining user attention on the platform for as long as possible is the company’s top priority to maximize profit.

It’s not necessarily that companies are villains in the purest sense, plotting to harm their users—they’re not. But the primary task of any commercial company is minimizing costs and maximizing profit. And in this case, the circumstances are such that all of this happens at the expense of the users. Users, in this context, are not even batteries, but fuel for the company, and it doesn’t matter what happens to the fuel, as long as the machine keeps running on it. In other words, the company solves its problems at the expense of its users. This is the case where the methods to achieve the final goal don’t matter. The dark side of capitalism 😉.

What would I change in the Hive feed?

To address the information vacuum problem, I would suggest introducing a tag (topic) selection on the empty feed right after registration. This would make it easier for the new user to find content that interests them. During the onboarding process, the user selects a few topics of interest, and based on that, content is recommended. The user will then have an understanding that content exists and they can make choices. After the first subscription, the tags are removed from the feed, and the process of manually curating the feed begins.

I’ll share my personal experience while it’s still fresh in my memory. My subscription feed started working decently after I subscribed to 50 people. After subscribing to 100, it became much more comfortable for me to find the information that interests me. In each case, this will be individual, as it depends on the user’s interests and the overall number of users on the platform.

It’s really frustrating when someone I’m subscribed to starts reposting 10-15 posts a day, it really annoys me. But it’s easily solved by unsubscribing, which I do periodically. If I like what the author writes and how they do it, I stay subscribed. But if I notice that I never read or am interested in the posts from a particular author, I unsubscribe. This is how I shape my informational space, and I’m happy with it. That’s why I wrote at the beginning of the article that the information feed on Hive is IDEAL, but for a new user, I would still make some changes (described above) to fill the initial information vacuum.

Here are my thoughts and perspective on this situation. What do you think about all of this?

I'm also interested in sociology, psychology, and mass behavior. If you're subscribed to authors who write interestingly on this topic, please share the links to their profiles in the comments. I'd appreciate it.