Well said. It sort of drives me crazy when I hear the line "we've tried this for years and it hasn't worked". To be blunt, we haven't tried shit. People have fiddled with the knobs that hardly effect the end user for years while totally ignoring all the interfaces that people actually interact with or putting any energy into making the applications usable or useful for a potential creator or consumer. The behavior of the users is based on the design of the applications.

Content disappears after 7 days and can't be found in search or discovered organically in any dependable way = it's a waste of time to create good content. Whether you're after rewards or organic engagement, the applications offer you neither and no tools to succeed except to post more. Which is exactly what people do.

To be able to claim we'd tried a lot of the social front we'd need to have dramatically changed to UX over the years based on observed behavior from the users. None of that is happening and IMO the strongest feature of HIVE has become the scapegoat of the failures in other areas.