The Road Ahead for Social Media in Web3

Don’t we want Hive to be the future of social media on the blockchain?

Most of us here probably agree that cryptocurrency and Web3 are going to be part of the future landscape. That means that social media will probably also take on a Web3 form, and that could be Hive. Some might say it already is Hive, but we just don’t have the numbers that show widespread adoption yet.

Hive to the Moon?

It would be amazing for all of us if Hive became very popular because, while many of us might feel like we arrived late on the scene – I only joined last September – we are still in the early “pioneer” days of cryptocurrency adoption. For most people, the whole concept of Hive would take a while to process.

Until crypto is much more widespread and better understood, it might not be reasonable to expect huge numbers to join up to the Hive. However, this is good. Why is this good? In my opinion, we need to clean up the house before we can have company over!

The Downvote is not as Awesome as You Have Been Led to Believe

Downvote – Needs to be Revamped Because We are NOT Crabs in a Bucket and Hive is NOT Steem

I have had many people explain this and that to me about the downvote. I have discussed in previous posts that the downvote concept comes from page 14 of the original Steem whitepaper. The “crabs in a bucket” theory.

I do not think the people who wrote the whitepaper truly grasped the concept of crabs in a bucket, or, if they did, they had a sick sense of humour perhaps? Crabs in a bucket knock each other down to prevent anyone from getting ahead. This is not behaviour that I would think we want to encourage, and yet the design of the downvote button was specifically meant to trigger “crab in a bucket” behaviour. Literally. I am using the true sense of the word “literally” here.

What’s the Fuss?

I do realize that there is a substantial percentage of people who wonder what the fuss is all about. Part of me is tempted not to write about it. Another part of me is tempted not to write on Hive. And another part of me considers writing on Hive, but avoiding the issue.

The current incarnation of “the fuss” is this: I am not going to name names because that is just a recipe for trouble, but there are currently two whales on Hive who are having a dispute. Do I know the full history? No. I do not. I know that one of the whales used to upvote my work on a regular basis (me and 200 other people). He stopped because, as a result of the dispute, the other whale started downvoting posts to the tune of the amount of the upvote, making the entire upvote pointless.

Initially, there was just this tiny little downvote like a protest of a few cents, and that was not a big deal, obviously. However, then, the other whale just decided to bring us all into the quarrel. Personally, my posts were not hugely downvoted because the whale who used to upvote them, noticing what was happening to his upvotes, decided to upvote the HBD stabilizer instead.

I would like to point out a few things:

1. I very much appreciate all the support from anyone who likes my work and upvotes it. It makes a difference to my self-esteem and my income.
2. I don’t think it makes much difference to a whale whether they upvote actual people or the HBD stabilizer. I don’t understand the precise mechanics, but I know the HBD stabilizer needs a certain level of upvote for HBD to be… stable… However, I think the curation reward is the same whether a whale is upvoting the stabilizer or the actual hard work of content creators.

This Post Will Probably Not Do Well… But I Needed to Say it Anyhow…

I notice that posts that praise Hive uncritically do very well in terms of author reward, but I think it is important to look at this environment and consider what is happening. As Web3 is built, there will be more social networks that are blockchain-based.

In light of recent events, I have done some research, and there are many more options now than there were in September. I think we might look back on these days like the early days of the internet. We want Hive to survive for years and not become the “MySpace” of Web3. How can we achieve this, however?

Democracy? Dare I Suggest it?

Honestly, I don’t have the answers, but I think that, somehow, there has to be more equality. I think that is what it boils down to. We have these incredibly powerful and anonymous people at the top of the food chain here who are accountable to no one. While this makes sense economically – it is “their stake,” from a community perspective, it is hard to swallow.

When I see a post that has received over 500 upvotes, which are then overturned by one big downvoter, that not only seems unfair, it seems condescending. It is as though that one downvoter is stating that their opinion is more valuable than the 500.

Sometimes Downvotes Are Useful

The system needs revamping, not tossing out.

In some cases, downvoting might still be justified. For example, what if someone posted a nice piece of plagiarism, and it got upvoted, but then we realized it was plagiarism – then, downvoting, even negating all those votes, makes sense. However, an automatic downvote to counteract someone else’s upvote… is dizzyingly stupid.

Whose Side Am I on?

Short answer: People. Longer answer: relatively sane people. In other words, I am on the side of the average Hivean.
I have had a few people ask me why I keep writing “in support” of the whale who was regularly upvoting my work, but I don’t think they understand.

First, I am writing in support of a stronger Hive, and not necessarily any particular individual. Secondly, it is hard not to have a bit of a soft spot for someone who regularly upvotes your work – upvoted… it is past tense now.

However, here is the biggest point that I think people are missing about the current situation: this is a game of chess, and the whale in question has no move that will benefit the “little people” of Hive such as myself.

I have considered this. Knowing that this other whale will downvote all his upvotes, what can he do?

1. Continue to upvote and hope it ends, destroying his curation return in the interim. If he were a bad businessperson, he probably wouldn’t be a whale.
2. Stop upvoting individual accounts. Vote for something that will generate a return (such as the HBD stabilizer) and consider his next move.

I am not a great chess player, but what could his next move be? He has no guarantee that this other whale will ever stop.

To me, the question is not “how do we resolve this particular dispute?” It is, “how do we prevent this from happening in the future on Hive?” If we have no way to prevent it, we accept that once people have a stake of a certain size, they are allowed to be sociopathic, and the “community” of Hive has a built-in tolerance for this anti-social behaviour.

Why is This an Issue?

I don’t know about you, but I have already dealt with a lot of sociopaths in my real life, and I am well acquainted with how bad things can be. If we don’t have a system to ensure that the lunatics are not running the asylum, this is certainly not a place I feel safe, and, frankly, neither should anyone.

I have known this from the start, but I tried to turn a blind eye to it because there are so many wonderful things about Hive. There is a lot of opportunity to develop as a creator in various ways, to network, to build friendships, to learn about other cultures. I genuinely believe my life would be impoverished without Hive.

However, I made the decision in my life to stay away from toxic people, whether in friendships, relationships, or the workplace. Therefore, I don’t know what will happen because I do like it here, but this place needs to change. Honestly, I do not think it will. I hope it will, but I suspect it won’t.

If it doesn’t, I fear it will be a fond memory in a few years just as MySpace is now. It will be merely a memory because right now, today, I don’t think anything better exists in terms of blockchain social networks. However, that will change.

Conclusion

Please note that I did not say, that might change. It will change. Eventually, more people will want a truly decentralized social networking platform. There will probably be a few that come out as leaders. If we want Hive to be among them, there will have to be some serious changes, and I sincerely hope Hive rises to the challenges.

I will stay for a while and see if anyone seems remotely invested in change. The reason I don’t think that change will happen on Hive is that the people with money and power here – well, there’s no real incentive for them to alter the way things are done. They are building wealth very effectively with the current system. If people were to exit Hive en masse, it would affect them, but, other than that, even if Hive went extinct, they would just gradually power down and find a new pod I think.

A few people have encouraged me to keep writing and be stubborn, but there is not a question of whether I will keep writing. There is a question of whether I will keep writing here. I want to. I write as regularly as I can and I have been powering up because I believed that Hive would increase in value.

However, I am starting to wonder what will happen if things don’t change. We can say that the money doesn’t matter, but, after all, it must matter to someone or this wouldn’t be happening. If we want Hive to be a very nice stable coin and nothing else, that is fine, but if we want it to be a thriving social network and a way for people to make a little money doing what they love, I think we can do better.

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