I’m trying to figure out what we need to do to make the platform more friendly so we can onboard people.
I’m trying to isolate things we deal with today that causes issues:
- Seeing Blurt spam seems to be a problem
- People never letting go of Steem seems to be another problem
- People not knowing how the reward pool works is a problem
- People not understanding basic economics/finance when looking at what Whales do is another problem (makes it seem like a Cabal because big stakeholders are naturally going to do similar things when it comes to trading their position)
- People thinking downvotes are bad because they do not understand 3 and/or 4 seems to be a problem
You alright pal?
I’m not sure. I would like to figure out what practical things we can do to make HIVE more fun for reasonable and normal people.
I’m working a lot to do this but it makes me look crazy. I think we are in a weird spot where me working hard makes me look crazy might also be a problem 😅
I’m doing great. Lots of stress but I love to work so this has been a lot of fun for me.
It’s like working while talking to people. Kind of cool!
Limit taxation would be my first recommendation. This post is focused on Blurt, because they're spamming you mercilessly. Blurt only exists because Hive allows 100% taxation of peoples' income. Everyone on Blurt I have spoken with is there because they were taxed excessively here.
People don't like losing their money. It feels like someone picked their pocket when they get DV'd here. I have a friend that pays ~$400k/yr in taxes. He doesn't like it, but he likes going to prison less, and having a significant income enough to put up with it. People taxed at 100% of their earning on Hive have no significant income to enable them to mitigate the pain of their money being taken from them.
Reasonable DV's for someone that has done something wrong wouldn't create that anger, and certainly wouldn't inspire a whole other platform to be created. 100% taxation of earnings indefinitely doesn't really leave anyone any choice but to leave. I know hundreds of people that left the platform because of that reason, know of thousands, maybe tens of thousands more that did, and suspect the real number is ~1M.
DV'ing a post that is plagiarism, or self voting, or is discovered to be using a botnet to vote a partner in crime, or themselves, is reasonable, and can be effective in ending the behaviour. However, when these DV's continue indefinitely even after the culprit has quit doing that, that isn't reasonable and drives people from the platform, and makes them very angry, too. This has given Hive a bad smell on the market, because those angry people complain to everyone they can that they have been robbed of all their earnings, and censored, and they're right.
This is very obviously a tool that is poorly controlled, and prone to abuse, that Hive should manage better IMHO. It is the primary, and almost exclusive, reason for the dismal and abysmal user retention Hive has today. It also greatly impedes new onboards, because for 8 years people have been complaining across the cryptosphere about being taxed into penury without relief to the very people that are the primary market for Hive. It's the worst marketing plan I've ever seen, and the best marketing plan I've ever seen is authors happy they're posting on Hive and bragging about how successful they are.
Hive should better manage DV's to encourage the latter, and minimize the former, and that is the most important use of the DHF I can imagine.
I don’t agree with the taxation description so this is a hard one for me to respond to.
I think having a downvote free alternative is great. I would like more FRIENDLY competition with HIVE. I just wish people would try to show how Blurt is great vs try to show how HIVE is bad.
I think we should onboard people with the allure that HIVE is a free to use platform and you can get rewards but they are not guaranteed.
I believe if people will only stay on HIVE if they get rewards, then they will eventually leave anyways.
Well, I have to disagree that people will leave platforms if they don't get rewards. Very few get any financial rewards on X, Meta, Youtube, or etc. They are there because they get to discuss with folks about things they want or need to discuss. Hive enabling people to directly fund the creation of media they prefer is an enormous draw, both to the market for that media and the creators. That potential is what makes Hive so promising. That promise gives people hope.
For many years I refused to hope at all for anything, because I had been so crushed by grief when my hopes and dreams were crushed. I very nearly died. While that hope is Hive's greatest draw, when hope is crushed that is when we suffer. Pain isn't suffering. Expectation of living without pain and then living in pain causes that hope to be crushed, and that causes suffering.
It isn't the lack of rewards that drives people off Hive when they're DV'd. It's the unfairness, the crushed hope that Hive could make a difference when they see that centralized money power prevents free speech on Hive just like it's prevented on X. Dogs will fight to the death over scraps, despite being well fed, if the tidbits are distributed unfairly. So will monkeys.
When a monkey in an acrylic cage next to another monkey gets a bit of cucumber, it's happy to get a reward. When it sees the monkey in the cage next to it hit a button and get a bit of grape, it starts mashing the button in it's cage because it wants that grape. If it gets a bit of cucumber instead of grape it will literally go into a rage and throw the cucumber at the researcher.
It is not pain that causes suffering. It is the crushed hope.
Bingo
Healthy stress is good stress.