Opinion: The way forward.

in LeoFinance3 years ago (edited)

         I don't often like to write about Hive in general. I figured it's overdone, repetitive, and boring. It's always hashing and rehashing the same things every other person is writing. It's like seeing LeoFinance users talking about the tribe instead of financial topics.

         For the most part, the folks that talk to me already know my feelings on the subject. Nevertheless, it might be good to put it out there for my own future reference.

         It's been a long journey of tweaks on existing parameters since I started here in 2018. From the EIP, free downvotes, Rshare penalties, etc., the chain has come a long way. Most of the tweaks aimed at incentives for desired behaviors.

         All those are not important because most of us have lived through it. What's important is how Hive is moving forward.

Blog to earn

         I wish this main focus would diminish over time. It's not the only thing to do around Hive. The overemphasis on "your voice is worth something" has always bothered me. This is why we have an overwhelming (albeit tiny) userbase of pretentious creators/curators. It all spirals down to people pretending to do things they aren't good at and enjoy for rewards. When that happens, the quality is garbage and it shows.

         Ask yourself, when was the last time a viral content came out of Hive?

         It also limits the type of activities on the chain. We still have OGs in this space that feels like "quality content" is the only thing that should appear on the chain. Which leads to my next point...

Games, NFTs, actual social interactions

         See how Splinterlands brought people over to Hive? I bet it's the biggest surge since the 2017 bull run. Social media has been the talking point on Hive for years. Yet, we didn't have any meaningful social things until the debut of Hive Engine back in 2019.

         Say what you want about @aggroed, but he's one of the few running a working product that generates revenue. It's refreshing seeing people joining the platform for something other than "blogging". In a technical sense, the games we play are Engine games instead of Hive games, but the point stands.

         I would argue the most important thing came out of Engine is "tokenized communities".

Tokenization

         It seems pointless right now, but so did NFTs and look what happened. Hive has missed out on some major opportunities in the crypto space. Whether it's DeFi, staking, etc. it felt like there's a trend of not realizing the potential of ideas we come across.

         Whatever you feel about @dan, it's worth noting that a lot of the ideas he shared were ahead of his time. Were they all his original ideas? I doubt it. Given how he was around some of the prominent figures we see today, I would say they exchanged ideas. Watch people like Vitalik or Hoskinson. These are people who were around Larimer in the early days. It would be silly to assume they aren't making those talking points in the past into reality.

         The difference is, Larimer is a quitter.

         Anyways, tokenized communities, in some talking points, are the next big thing. It may not happen this cycle. It could happen next cycle. You bet it's going to happen. There's a reason why you see the likes of Jack Dorsey and others racing to bring this into reality.

         Tokenization is the first step for Hive to move away from its antiquated reward pool. It is the source of most of the drama and problems on this platform. It is the reason why we can't have diversified activities other than "quality content". IT. DOESN'T. WORK.

         No matter how "objective" you may try, it's ridiculous to try to compare the apples and oranges of content. Tokenized communities alleviate that. Each community has their own definition of value. Their token's relative strength to HIVE bases itself on the market demands.

Individuals and communities

         From my experience with Tribes, people behave different when they own their communities. You see members participate in development and even carry out anti-abuse on their own. It's a much scalable approach than expecting a one-size-fits-all solution.

         And communities can collaborate. They could share verifications of users, ideas, or whatever. Can't verify if someone is legit? Well, don't vote for them. Give them a little "unverified" tag to let everyone know on the frontend.

         There are many ways to moderate without having to use downvotes. Now, if only those features receive more refinement and finishing touches...

         Initiatives like @hivewatchers are only temporary solutions to a perpetual problem. In the long-term, they aren't useful as people are diverse and communities are broad. What needs to happen is fleshing out community features. Then, tokenized communities may flourish in ways similar to LeoFinance making strides.

Staking incentives

         What does that leave the base layer? Well, the HBD interests and tools to stabilize prices were the best parts about HF25. People love passive income. It's rather strange Hive took so long to create incentives for investors. It was pretty insane the way the userbase here expected investors to be "curators".

         Other chains simplify things so that the base layer is about finances. It can even be about governance. But, asking investors to be something they aren't and get mad at them? Only on Hive. At least, things are changing.

         Now, what to do about HP incentives in the long run? I suppose RC is part of the equation. Governance is definitely the mainstay. At some point, there needs to be a reason to not have only a third of the HIVE in HP. If Hive can take that challenge, the price will soar in due time. Price action due to supply shock is quite real.


         There are obviously a lot more to it than I have listed here. Of course, they are but my opinions. The point is that there are things Hive can change and move towards to become more relevant in crypto. It doesn't have to be the biggest hit on the block. All anyone needs to know is it's a chill place where people hang out and do things because it has a community.

         Anyhow, you all have a good weekend and try not to think too hard about what I wrote. It's ultimately inconsequential.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

Sort:  

Well, you should definitely express your thoughts about the Hive more often. What gets to the top does not always reflect objective reality. So I would not say that you are repeating what was said before.

Blog to earn

I was thinking about it just the other day. this is a really depressing concept, especially the way it affects people in the pursuit of profit. However, at the same time, this is an important motivation for attracting many users. And this is not bad. For example, I learned about Splinterland through Hive, not vice versa. Someone who comes here for blogging for money will see the entire infrastructure hidden behind the blog, over time, I hope.

Objectively, I think that the blog is already not the master system in all this history with the Hive blockchain. But it remains a very important component.

It’s important, but shouldn’t be the limiting factor to what can be done here.

I think that we will hit a point where hive rewards become interest instead of rewards. Tokenization will occur on the second level through games and communities rather than on the base layer and we will have enough users that we won't all know each other and fight over it.

We are moving towards it but these things take time.

Excellent post. When the reward pool is ditched and tokenised communities are responsible for their own rewards with a percentage scraped off to cover blockchain running costs, we might see some sincere content and a few necks wound in.
Have a great weekend :-)

You take care as well.

Oh just curious, did you ever resolve the issues with the builders?

Sadly not. House is still standing as it was and due to lockdown, I can't get down to finish it myself and our lawyer can't get there to file the charges. When it's moving again, I'll become a full-on top quality content creator and mercilessly post a photo of each brick being laid ;-)

Don't worry, you have first dibs on the spare room if you fancy a holiday!

I do agree that applications are the way to promote HIVE. At least we have seen that the blog to earn aspect only appeals to a small subsection. Of course there are communities for everything so I don't think everyone will be left out but there are a lot of people who don't care for it.

As such applications like Splinterlands are the best way to promote HIVE. If we had a few more applications like Splinterlands, the demand for RCs would definitely increase due to the number of transactions. I have high hopes for the Spknetwork and maybe Podping helping on that side though.

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

The more things for people to do, the better.

Love the positive tone, at least at towards the end. If blocktrades keeps improving stuff at the current rate we will surely get there :)

Me positive? That’s crazy talk.

quickly, downvote my comment so that nobody sees you in such a state :)))

Tokenized Communities are the center of growth for the Hive blockchain, can't deny that fact!

Let’s hope they work out.

Thanks for this article.

Each community has their own definition of value.

And each stakeholders has their own vision for Hive and I can’t wait to see hive to move to next level and become more relevant in crypto

Posted Using LeoFinance Beta

So you'd like to pull the rug out from a tokenized community because tokenized communities are the future. Interesting.

And my investment? It can just go away? I'm better off going to hide in some segregated portion of the internet and buying into an unproven product that just sits around and talks about itself all day?

Why not simply enjoy doing the things you like to do without running interference and attempting to take away from others and what they built?

And why work to be more relevant in crypto when most of the world doesn't care about crypto and crypto is trying to make itself more relevant to the world?

Are those tribes truly working or is that just a group on discord that seems to be a few steps ahead of everyone else every time something new comes out? Meanwhile members simply stack tags making each tribe or community nearly identical...

Why call the content here "blogging" when much of it isn't even close to "blogging"?

Let me know when your wallet becomes zero because of it.

We can keep maintain a status quo that doesn’t quite work.

Yes, you've all been saying it's going to zero since the first day I arrived. Based on the same logic, all these tribes are going to zero as well, correct?

Why not simply flip the business model? Instead of catering to giving free handouts to what you describe as something worthless, in so many words, why not focus on consumers? "Nobody will pay out of pocket for content here..." Correct? Even though people all over the internet do pay for free content, getting ripped off along the way. The tribes don't even sell their content. Why is that? Do you know? Why is something that typically generates billions annually treated like an expense here? Could it be because the crypto crowd doesn't understand the business they're in? I think so.

And thinking the internet is only about content is why we are still stuck.

It’s about things to do.

Stop pigeon-holing everything into one and we might get somewhere more fun. There can be creators and consumers but not everyone are them.

Games, nfts, yadda yadda yadda. It's all content. And of course not everyone is a content creator. That's why you'll see one instance of content, like a video on Youtube, with 100k views. That's 100k consumers. Everyone is a consumer of something online. No denying that.

You mentioned viral content. Do you know what makes it difficult for content to go viral these days? The fact several instances of the same content are plastered all over the place. If I post, let's say 100 view on Hive blog. So from that group only a few will share and that link will only travel and spread as far as that group can take it. Same with the PeakD. That group can only send the the peakd link they shared so far before that too stagnates. Then say I used a tribe tag. Same thing. That group viewing on POB as example can only share that link so far. An article or Youtube video goes viral because there is ONE instance surrounded by ALL consumers who then share that one instance which travels further since the market wasn't fractured. Take those characters who post their bogus 'news' junk on every crypto platform they can find. Notice how not one of them ever goes viral even though their content is "everywhere"? That's why...

Doesn't matter. Name one piece of recognisable content where people are like "that was from Hive".

It does matter. You always need consumers to be around and share. I brought up how some pay consumers to not consume and how the fractured markets play a role in preventing content from going viral. Those are problems that can be solved. Blaming the content creators in a sense for things beyond their control is flawed logic.

All of my content is recognizable and people know it comes from Hive. So I named several and it was easy.

And what's wrong with some people enjoying the content like videos, art, music, articles, personalities, etc while others enjoy games or investment opportunities or whatever. Nobody is forcing everyone to do all the things. For instance I don't give a shit I can't use the LEO tag every time I post and I don't feel like I'm losing because my content doesn't fit. For the most part I'm not even interested in crypto but you don't see me telling those people to shut it down so we can make this all about content creation and consumption.

People can do whatever the hell they want here. What's wrong with that? Nothing.

I don’t know what the hell you are arguing about but keep typing.

You seem highly offended by the idea of each community having their own token and think that would somehow dilute your HIVE when it wouldn’t.

If it did, ETH would have failed long ago with ERCs.

I'm not offended. This is just what happens when people try to have a conversation. You probably think I'm trying to 'win' the conversation but really all I'm doing is offering my ideas.

offended by the idea of each community having their own token and think that would somehow dilute your HIVE when it wouldn’t.

To be honest I don't even know where you get that idea from. I have no problem at all with community tokens and only talked about ways to create demand for them, and I included Hive as well since it's a community token.

If I'm a consumer and my goal is support/buy/subscribe to some form of content I enjoy, have I spent any money if I move funds from my bank account to my Hive account, as example? No. I've simply transferred value from one place to the next meanwhile there's no risk since the goal was to throw that money away anyway, but this time it's still in my possession, and I'm free to tip, daily, with votes, as my money grows, rather than never seeing it again.

That's how sell the content here.

What's hilarious to me is how a magazine with ten daily contributors can provide an entry level salary to each one of those contributors with only 20k subscribers that all have a vote worth a penny. Very small numbers, very minimal 'investment' that technically doesn't cost the consumer a dime, making whatever content one wants to sell an even easier sell. And because of how crypto works, it becomes incredibly difficult to hit 'zero' with all that added buy pressure. Scale this up further with several communities or magazines or whatever label you want to attach to the superficial nonsense part and it's almost impossible to not see the potential. And it's funny to me because I've been talking about this for years, not many can grasp the concepts even though its sitting right under their noses for several years now, and people are still scratching their heads, wanting to turn this potential into just another cryptocurrency that people use to hope for miracles and flip for profits then move on to the next one leaving it in the dust. It's hilarious.

You say that, but I find people a lot less generous on Hive when it comes to tipping.

Most do not want to tip anything other than upvotes.

At the same time, why? When you can earn 100x off of some speculative bs? It’s all a numbers game.

It’s all rehashing by this point.

Voting is a form of tip. We are tipping, we just call it something else and pretend we're not tipping. Tipping compared to voting is a total ripoff. And a content consumer willing to tip over time with votes rather than all in one shot with money they'll burn and have to replace by working or whatever; that's not the same as a 'crypto investor'. The crypto investors here are the ones who offer potential consumers a reason to be paid to look away from the products and generate money from doing nothing, while the content goes without views, then the crypto crowd sits and thinks there's something wrong with the content, even though it was the crypto crowd that paid people to not look at it.

That’s why making investors curators is a bad idea.

HIVE is a token being used by too many different roles and they eventually conflict.

Consumers can be investors. It's not a bad idea at all. In a sense, that's how business usually works. You'd see far more interest in a tribe token for instance if the concept was sold to consumers. What investor would be disappointed with interest in the token they've invested in?

One can sell their product by technically charging nothing. That concept can be applied to any product and work just fine. And its funny to me because all people do is argue when I bring it up, instead of being able to understand what I'm trying to tell them, as it sits directly under their noses.

I think what most fail to understand is when you have a product like content such as videos, articles, games; you're not looking for crypto investors, you're looking for paying consumers who just happen to be using crypto, making them an indirect crypto investor, yet being an investor was never their goal. Attempting to convert or force consumers into being crypto investors, following that script, will spell disaster. Each individual in a community plays a role. The potential of each role should be realized and respected.

Anyway. Good talk, I guess.

Anyhow, you all have a good weekend and try not to think too hard about what I wrote. It's ultimately inconsequential.

The same could be said about everything!

Good post.

Some people would take it way too seriously. You just watch.

When the defi aspects of no fees hits the broader crypto community we will be making mad money for being known in the hive well enough to get rewards.

As splinterlands begins to dilute our average account age the early adopter phase will be seen to pass.
Having blogging rewards as a holdover from the launch could prove to be a lot of fun, imo.

I guess time will tell if this place gets there.

pixresteemer_incognito_angel_mini.png
Bang, I did it again... I just rehived your post!
Week 71 of my contest just started...you can now check the winners of the previous week!
!BEER
13

Congratulations @enforcer48! You have completed the following achievement on the Hive blockchain and have been rewarded with new badge(s) :

You distributed more than 97000 upvotes.
Your next target is to reach 98000 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 STOP

To support your work, I also upvoted your post!

Check out the last post from @hivebuzz:

Hive Power Up Day - September 1st 2021 - Hive Power Delegation

Hey @enforcer48, here is a little bit of BEER from @pixresteemer for you. Enjoy it!

Did you know that you can use BEER at dCity game to **buy dCity NFT cards** to rule the world.

 3 years ago  Reveal Comment