Hive when people say it has a problem!
What the hell are we doing here?
Way back in the mid 2010's, some like minded people had a vision for a different kind of social community and new kind of cryptocurrency economy. They seemed to believe all people could offer contributions to a society and a community could be formed around a more principled and equitable way of sharing resources.
They promised a world where Proof of Brains, aka Proof of Work and the merit of a user's contributions could be measured by the members of the community and rewarded according to value added within the community. The promise was power to the people, by the people, for the people.
The general premise was that there were flaws in a fiat system where power was centralized throughout the course of history and concentrated in a very wealthy but very small group of inner circles of power and influence. All which lead to a world that became all but unchangeable and mostly escaping their grasp was all but unobtainable by the common person. Sure some nations and systems claimed to be merit based or "democratic" in their decision making and dangled the possibility of advancement to those who "worked hard to overcome adversity" but in reality, they still were controlled by gatekeepers who picked and chose who could rise to the top. Good ideas were squashed. One only need to look at examples such as Nikolai Tesla's life story for real world examples of merit being crushed by the guy with more money.
First, A little reminder
Of the key principles used to guide the design of Steem, the most important is that everyone who contributes to a venture should receive pro-rata ownership, payment, or debt from the venture. This is the same principle that is applied to all startups as they allocate shares at founding and during subsequent funding rounds.
The second principle is that all forms of capital are equally valuable. This means that those who contribute their scarce time and attention toward producing and curating content for others are just as valuable as those who contribute their scarce cash. This is the sweat equity principle and is a concept that prior cryptocurrencies have often had trouble providing to more than a few dozen individuals.
The third principle is that the community creates value to serve its members. This principle is exemplified by credit unions, food co-ops, and health sharing plans, which serve the members of their community rather than selling products or services to people outside the community.
From the introduction of the original Steem White Paper June 2018
But what happened to those altruistic principles?
Well let's take a closer look at that...
Hive is an innovative and forward-looking decentralized blockchain and ecosystem built on the Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) protocol [1]. It is the first highly-scalable DPoS blockchain independent of central authority that addresses the problems of mass adoption and versatility of use.
Hive allows the easy storage and retrieval of immutable strings of data and information. It sports three-second zerofee transactions and is designed to store vast amounts of content and to make it available for time-based monetization.
Hive recognizes that transaction fees are often one of the largest challenges to facilitating development and flexibility of use on a blockchain. Instead of requiring potentially costly and inconvenient transaction fees, Hive uses a novel stake-based Resource Credit mechanism to create a fee-less model.
Hive also aims to overcome mainstream adoption shortcomings in blockchain technology and content publishing by improving on their accessibility. It leverages the coined Proof-of-Brain (PoB) concept by distributing a portion of the inflation to content creators and consumers. To earn without financial investment, individuals partake in a wide range of activities. Those include blogging, participating in discussions, curating others, building and engaging with dapps,playing games and more; their limits are only constrained by their own imagination to further the decentralization of the system. All content is always readily-available on the blockchain and retains its original integrity.
Since its inception, Hive has steadily grown as an ecosystem. Myriad dapps, APIs and front-ends contribute to a general and straightforward accessibility of data, transactions and records, so that this existing diversity and utility ensure that the ecosystem is welcoming to content creators, consumers, investors and builders.
Hive was created as an independent and decentralized fork of the Steem blockchain. As a community-driven fork, its intention is to continue the strong community values that have been established, while also freeing the ecosystem from the burden of Steemit Inc. and its disproportionate influence. While that influence had threatened Steem’s decentralization since its inception in 2016, it was kept in check by the means of a social contract. Following the sale of Steemit Inc to Sun Yuchen of the Tron Foundation In February 2020, the exploitation of this influence and loss of confidence in the continued viability of Steem ultimately led to the creation of the Hive blockchain.
From the introduction of the original Hive White Paper September 2020
Can you see the difference in the tone of these two introductions?
Look again, it's subtle but critically important. We've been the victims of a Coup.
We went from Proof of Brain to Proof of Stake, in a single move.
We got taken by a coup and did any of you have a say in the new white paper or the change from proof of brains to proof of money? A say in the new direction? Or did you just go with the flow, assuming it was just a new clone of the same thing, because the old one got bought out from under us, and by the way, pay no attention to the parties who benefited from that, that's old news now anyway, right? Despite some of them being still among us...
But yeah so...
So, It used to be about merit, value, brains, but now it's by definition about merely and only about the elite with the most money who can really matter here or affect any kind of changes.
Sometimes anyway, but I'll get to that too.
It seems we may have lost our way. Because in reality, it's not working out like they advertised after all for anyone BUT an elite few.
In fact one could and many do argue that there is a very strong irony to that last paragraph of the Hive white paper and that in fact, not only did little change, but in some ways things got much much worse.
Read this bit once again:
While that influence had threatened Steem’s decentralization since its inception in 2016, it was kept in check by the means of a social contract. [...], the exploitation of this influence and loss of confidence in the continued viability of Steem ultimately led to the creation of the Hive blockchain.
But wait, in the same paper they swap from proof of brain to proof of stake, aka, proof of money as decided by one's bank account value, instead of proof of merit as decided by the users shared consensus.
Let me ask you all some very specific things.
Do you really feel like this current version of the blockchain is "decentralized? in terms of governance? Not to be confused with merely having distributed server nodes, but actual decentralized decision making regarding the future of the chain?
Do you feel like "proof of brain" is really all that it takes to make it to a governance position or even warrant a level of rewards worthy of your efforts as a user?
Do you think that there is truly a meritocracy on this ship?
Do you feel as it seems that many others seem to feel and openly discuss, that there are gatekeepers and centralized colluding parties that work to prevent the unchosen from achieving momentum or higher rankings because they jeopardize some incumbent's position?
This stuff causes a user adoption and growth problem big time!
And aside from ALL of that I have asserted already, we can't even grow the user base, because a new user who actually arrives here excited, finds out quickly that he or she doesn't have any of this precious "stake" and can't even use the place when they arrive, unless they join by being rich and/or know some insiders to get some RC from once they arrive!
We are so far from making growth possible by this self defeating baked in bullshit that it's almost ludicrous.
When a new user joins, - IF - they make it through the complicated and poorly contrived signup/registration processes,
and then figure out what all their complicated keys mean,
and then learn about all the types of currencies and tokens involved in using the platform,
then they will then quickly find out they can do very little anyway because of the Resource Credit system precluding them from actually even USING the damn place in the first place.
I myself experienced this when I returned after 2.5 years away from the chain with an empty wallet, only to find out after making my "hello again!" style post, that I couldn't even reply to the first round of comments that post received due to a quickly drained lack of RC.
Luckily, a kind old friend delegated some RC to me so I could continue and then another noticed I was back and added some more to help as well (thanks @malos10 and @snook !) --- but if I were new here and had no prior contacts, I would have been totally stuck, totally confused and totally considered it just "broken" or "stupid" and left before even getting started.
Because frankly, that IS broken AND stupid. And completely antithetical to all the promises made in BOTH whitepapers.
The Promise
The Truth
Further upon investigating the system in the eyes of a new user, once again, after completing all the technical learning curves and hurdles it took just to sign up and start posting, I would quickly find that my voice was worth nothing and only by the grace of sheer chance would anyone notice my posts or react to them. If I was completely unknown, as so many are, that post would languish and I would once again decide this was a waste of time and walk away.
IF then by further chance, I was intrigued and enticed enough by what I saw around me to continue despite the first several obstacles, I would see that this community that proudly goes about exclaiming its whitepaper documented "inclusiveness" and "proof of brain" largely was just another clusterfuck of who you know and how you know them and far less about merit or value than about cronyism and collusion.
For evidence of this, look at trending and new posts. Look at what really IS quality, original content being ignored, while oddly strange things appear as the most rewarded or most seen content.
Look at this real time example I just grabbed:
How can a post with 3 votes about something that is barely "quality" anything, be the alleged most viewed post when the two right under it (and we will discuss that in a moment) are MASSIVELY more viewed and voted on with the numbers to prove it right there. A flaw in the interface maybe? Ok, but its been this way all week, that weird porn post topping the chart for the last three days while really good content that would have mass appeal is buried much further down the list.
Proof of Brain? Well if this is real, then it must be true that people keep their brains in their pants!
Now about the next few posts.
Anyone who has been here awhile knows that Proof of BULLSHIT is a better metric for what "sells" on this platform as "value." I've benefitted from that myself in years past. Stir up some shit, start a feud, call out a vapid imposter for what they are and you get attention economy eyeballs and rewards. But is that really proof of brain? Proof of merit? Or just tabloid trash no better than that National Enquirer paper at your supermarket checkout line?
I can't tell you how many genuinely talented authors, news pundits, artists, musicians, poets and creators, and developers and scientists and philosophers and so on that I have met on this platform, within its various communities. So many brilliant minds and we are fortunate they are here, enjoying each other, and perhaps that is reward enough, but that is available everywhere on the internet, so why would they go through all those learning curves, onboarding hassles, technical limitations and suffer through endless noise in the signal like the screenshot above to be here?
They came for the promises in the white papers, the premise that a "better way" could be had here.
But where is that?
It's a world where we commonly now accept that mere effort won't get you any extra influence here unless its deemed to be of value to handful of wealthy gatekeepers who have decided to make this place their personal playground and to sort of take a Hunger Games style approach to everyone else, deciding whom they let live or die on the chain at their whimsical discretion disguised by the wiley guise of "curation".
You're so wrong Cork!!!! Look at so and so!!!
There will be those who argue with "What about so and so, or such and such" and as with any set of rules there are always exceptions. But let's be very very real. For every exception, there are many more who will never meet the criteria of a certain few to be accepted and allowed to progress very far.
Crumbs for the commoners, coffers for the chosen ones. Look at the proposal pages and witness pages and look at their historic and static nature, ever unchanging, never being replaced by anyone not from the club.
VERY rarely has the witness list changed much in the last 8 years and when it does, its because of feuds between the feudal lords, hoisting each other on their petards. It's illustrated by the same trending posts in the screenshot, and has been happening since day zero on both renditions of the chain, be it steem or Hive, same usual suspects, same concentrations of wealth and power and only about half of them deserving of any attention at all, based on "proof of brain".
So what should we do? What CAN be done?
That's how the elite will respond to this. Condescendingly they will ask... "Tell us then, what should we change? What would you do to fix it? Offer a solution if you want to bitch so much."
The answer to that, is sadly that my answer would be irrelevant, by design of the Hive whitepaper and they already know that. Why do you think they made that subtle change from Brains to Stake in the first place? They knew that was the only way they could thwart genuine meritocracies from occurring naturally and prevent content creators from taking too much of their precious rewards pool which they happily horde with poorly documented opaque "projects" and "proposals" and the top 20 witnesses propping each other up out of reach of change by even the most determined large groups in the community with collectively smaller wallets.
The system by design precludes even a mass uprising of RC limited, low value wallet holders from actually having any voice at all, sometimes not even enough voice to say a simple "hello" to commenters on their new posts as new users.
How is any of this true to any kind of spirit of "Decentralization"?
This place is and always was about Proof of Wallet and Proof of Insider Status and always was.
Again, some exceptions occur. Almost if as if purposefully allowed to happen, someone can be included just to be used as a token example, but should they in any way test the sanctity of the "powers" they run the risk of being eviscerated. It has happened to me, it has just been evident in the promotion of @engrave and the demotion of @pharesim because they dared speak aloud or were needed to further someone else's greedy ambitions.
And along those lines, I am sure an army of sycophants will come to defend some parties "Oh but Hive needs Splinterlands and Splinterlands needs money". Wait whut? A for profit business that has existed for years now, cant pay its own bills so it needs the communities money to save its ass? Sounds like exactly the kind of business failing that should NOT be bailed out. How many of their users are using their proof of brain on the chain? Showing any kind of proof of existence at all? What has this done for the chain except fill the feeds with game spam and bury quality content? And now they want substantial money to stay afloat? GTFO.
But that digressive example aside, its one of many. SO many good projects came here, and left because proof of merit wasn't REALLY how things work here. So many great people have come, looked and left to go elsewhere because they saw it for the illusion it can be.
Hive has a problem and that problem is the irony of its governor's actions and actors not matching its white paper words in deed or in spirit.
We need to find a way to empower the actual users to mean something again. And that won't happen if its only possible to affect change if you have a million dollar wallet strong enough to make a noise, and even then, if the colluding few want you gone, you will be. Even money can't fix this. I could name names of many who tried but most of them left and wont be remembered.
But if money cant fix it, and merit cant fix it, can it be fixed? Can we find a way to truly have the meritocracy and uphold that social contract, or is it really just a place for the rich to reap the pool and the poor to beg for crumbs regardless of their contributions to the stickiness of the platform?
WHY would anyone want to come here at all? Answer that, and you will quickly realize that spending half a million on "hiring a marketing person or something" is pointless and a cash grab, because truly VALUEABLE and GOOD things sell themselves....
Let that sink in.
And let's talk about it!
It seems to me that staked governance was flawed from the onset. That was harshly revealed during the fork; yet those flaws existed prior to the fork. The egalitarian aspect of the papers quoted were pipe dreams; made all the more so through the Ninja Mined horde that continues to corrupt the system to this day.
HIVE is like a dysfunctional family that we put up with because we love most of the members.
One could have stayed with STEEM, yet most folks that meant anything to me were sold on the BS being put out by those about to loose their mining rights to Justin.
So it is what it is. A broken "experiment" that we love to use with others who we like to interact.
Absolutely, and I hereby claim the title of Drunk Uncle :)
Your description of events and the locale are all 100% accurate.
You don't think I know this?? Mwa haha haaaaaa.
LOL! That made me laugh out loud, alone, at 6am.
Then my work here is done!
@littlescribe yes, drunk uncle, beat you too it. ^ ^ ^
Ohhhhh, Now I know you are talking about me :D
had to be said cuz it made me laugh
You are one of the family that is loved. You have been on my mind now and again. Great to see you active. Hope your caregiving has gone well.
it is still going but getting more manageable each month.
and Thank You!!!
When I got here stinc gave me 3 hive, then the price dropped and they started giving out 15 hive.
When I cried about it I believe it was timcliff that dropped 100 hive on me, somebody did.
Pretty hard to complain about that even for me.
I had to beg a karma point on reddit because having positive karma on reddit was a prerequisite to getting an account for giving an email.
Those were the days.
Today the problem is power.
Instead of the power being distributed a little broader, we get the top 20 accounts getting 50% of the pool year after year.
For this to change, those with the power have to abdicate it.
Do you know how hard it is to take drugs from junkies?
Try taking power from somebody that has tasted it.
If hive is to succeed, imo, it will require that that power, at least over the pool, will have to be voluntarily relinquished to 'the community'.
I thought that would have happened by the 7th year, but nope.
Just another crappy day in the only utopia we get.
You mean congress and the senate won't pass term limits? Say it isn't so!
I really always liked @timcliff and I hope he's doing well. His account looks like it's been dormant a year or so too, with a random reblog here and there and last post in 2022 I think?
But he's still a witness. #30. As much as I enjoyed him as a person, I have to wonder how that can possibly be possible when its so hard for an active witness to move up against the tides of incumbent and entrenched power. But I guess as long as that node is running, its paying and technically more nodes is good and hes a better hands off witness human than some of the hands on witness humans. So I dunno man, I dunno.
But a lot of OGs like me and several others seem to simultaneously be resurfacing in literally just the past few days. And I'm wondering if change is in the air. Maybe it is?
Maybe there are some surprises in store for the near future? Maybe...
I am still here :) Hope you are doing well too @sircork. It's been a long time!
As far as my witness position, I'm here as a "backup". I was voted out of the top 20 a long while ago. I mostly lurk, keep up with the "important gossip" and throw my "2 cents" in every now and again.
I'm ready to serve as a top witness again if the need ever arises. I doubt it will, but that's mainly what the backups are for.
There is a lot of inertia with the witness voting process. It is really hard to move your way up, but it is also relatively easy to stay in the mid level once you have put the work in to get there.
I believe the intention is to find trustworthy and competent backup witnesses, so once you have proven yourself as one, you can generally stick around as long as you do the work necessary to keep your node up to date with the latest hardforks and be available to support if/when needed.
In theory active stakeholders could make the backup witness positions (and top witness positions too for that matter) more competitive, but having super active stakeholders who spend a lot of their personal time in the best interest of the chain/project has always been a bit of a pipe dream for Steem/Hive.
I am SO glad to see you reply :) And the timing AND your thought provoking insights are right on time too, because of this just now going live: https://peakd.com/witness/@sircork/big-news-enginewitty-is-a-witness-again-and-we-also-have-partnered-on-a-co-witness-called-pollennation-details-within
I am thrilled to hear you are keeping healthy and dialed into the place, I did the same. People think I was gone for 2 years but I was watching, listening, waiting for the right time for my OWN health and sanity to rejoin the fray and throw my hat into this mess we love so much.
Don't be a total stranger. You were always a role model, and its likely I could use plenty more shining examples to learn from like yourself!
Awww. It's Tim.
Hey mate! Miss you.
I stopped asking for a new 'whale experiment', it was just making me upset.
And, not even over who picks the witnesses and passes the proposals, just the pool, but, no soap.
Nobody buys into a game where the top 20 stack the deck.
Year after year.
But, iirc, I was told that blogging was not the final destination, just the beginning.
Over 8 years later we have movement on that wire.
Maybe vsc can pull us out of the doldrums.
It is kinda strange that folks are popping up out of the past.
What a post to wake up to. Wow, that is a hell of a rant, m'man.
I tend to be optimistic and try to see the good things in every situation, and I do see a lot of good to what is going on with Hive, a lot of potential. But yeah... there is still a lot of shit. Bravo for coming back and immediately talking about it. You bring back a breath of fresh air that we've been missing here for some time.
And man... that sign-up page. It seems like I have been complaining about that for 7 years since I arrived on chain. It is such a terrible new user experience. I post about it every now and again, but with few exceptions I have never in my time here been able to gain the eyes of any of the big boys.
Keep up the ranting, my friend. I am often too busy with my school and family to figure out how to get too involved, but I throw as much support as I can to those who do, like our friend @enginewitty, who has been doing an amazing job at everything here and I will you as well. Keep the energy coming!
!PIMP !DUO !LUV
My mama always said, if you're gonna be an ass, don't do it half assed. :)
Ok, she didn't ever say that actually, but I'd like to think she would encourage me to be the entire ass to my fullest potential. And I can't let fictitious mama down, right?
Thanks for reading.
You just got DUO from @dbooster.
They have 1/1 DUO calls left.
Learn all about DUO here.
You must be killin' it out here!
1.000 PIMP@dbooster just slapped you with , @sircork.
You earned 1.000 PIMP for the strong hand.
They're getting a workout and slapped 1/3 possible people today.
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Thanks man, appreciate the confidence and loyalty !PIMP
You must be killin' it out here!
1.000 PIMP@enginewitty just slapped you with , @dbooster.
You earned 1.000 PIMP for the strong hand.
They're getting a workout and slapped 1/4 possible people today.
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I've often thought of offering a proposed design for the UI signup. I don't know enough about each app nowadays, but perhaps you/we could come up with a way to rewrite it, and just simply propose the change. It feels like a paid admin/DEV job tho?
Stirring up trouble again, I see, Mr. Cork.
If you're not allowed to be part of the solution, be part of the problem
-Ben Franklin, or Casey Stengle, or somebody.
I'll have to start referring to you as Sir Eldridge Cleaver. Your version is WAAAY better.
And in the hands of Milano, no less.
Now, that's a way to make a return entrance!
You're not wrong, however, I think there are some opportunities to change things. It'll be slow at first, but I think it really hinges on cultivating deeper connections within communities and not relying on "you can get paid to blog!" as the primary means of drawing people to Hive.
!PIZZA
!DOOK
!PIMP
!DUO
You must be killin' it out here!
1.000 PIMP@bulliontools just slapped you with , @sircork.
You earned 1.000 PIMP for the strong hand.
They're getting a workout and slapped 1/2 possible people today.
Read about some PIMP Shit or Look for the PIMP District
You just got DUO from @bulliontools.
They have 1/1 DUO calls left.
Learn all about DUO here.
"you can get paid to blog!" conflicts with "except you can't till you have some funds" and that's the point I just made to nonameslefttouse elsewhere in comments herein. I don't have a problem at all with pay to play, it was that way when steem first began, you had to pay to make an account. But it was clear at the front door back then too.
Ah, see I wasn't around for Steem, but having that disclaimer at the beginning would certainly be an improvement.
It was pointed out to me that it's buried in the FAQ on at least one interface to the chain (PeakD). And naturally everyone reads the questions they never knew they even had when jumping on one of the millions of social media tools they sign up for. Right guys? Guys?
And he is back LOLLLL
Abracadabra Guess who's back, guess who's back guess who's back babeeee
You're not wrong completely, but you definitely read too much into the steem whitepaper. Back then we had one overlord and bunch of lower lords. The overlord is gone at least. And look at that place now, power is way more concentrated than here.
I once tried to start a project to create a content recommendation system for new users, but failed to attract any contributors to help tagging posts to feed the algorithm. A lot of the issues you describe come from small users not being engaged enough IMO. And telling them they're powerless might contribute to this. It's not just the big guys voting for the same stuff all the time, there's a lot of herd mentality (and appeasement) here unfortunately.
Ok, I will concede a lot of your points. Valid feedback. Thats why the title and summary said "let's talk about it!"
But "And telling them they're powerless might contribute to this." Is kind of just speaking to the stake issue and the RC issue both. The truth is, even if I somehow corralled a couple thousand minnows in a group, we likely couldn't move a witness one spot in either direction, or direct curation rewards at all, if all our rewards are 0.00 per vote.
Thats what I meant by powerless.
True, but it's not viable to give anyone a voice even if they're not invested. That's a systemic issue without any viable workaround.
It's not too hard to get the vote value above nothing, and if minnows would vote more of their own they could build themselves up. The interfaces dont help with that though.
Trying to do my part with curangel.
So in a vacuum, if if a zero day minnow votes on other zero day minnows and their votes are worth 0.00 to each other, somehow they eventually build up some mass? Am I misunderstanding the value of votes as to how they work with the distribution of the pool? Because with enough larger voters also weighing in throughout the ecosystem, aren't those actual pool rewards consumed accordingly in a weighted ratio such that the zeros remain zero?
If you have the moment, link me to a better guide or educate me in a few words. it would benefit us all to understand the rewards distribution better, I'm quite certain.
No, 0 is 0. But there are a few who upvote minnows, and often the introduceyourself post gets them above 0 already. I know quite a few people who started with nothing and worked their way up to dolphin status. They need to stick around and grow their account though. Can't expect to join, not invest, and immediately have influence.
I do recall on steem that the Intro yourself thing was everyone's first stop, both to post and to do some daily reading. Since the advent of hive and the communities break outs, I haven't seen an intro yourself post in a longgg time when I have checked back around here. And definitely none in any trending columns. Which is where I'd expect them to land if somebody really awesome showed up here. But this brings us back to what would compel somebody really awesome to show up here? Whats our value prop really come to, if its not merit?
Do you expect a Mr Beast, a Neil deGrasse Tyson, or a Taylor Swift to appear on Hive? Yes yes, extreme examples to make a point, but B-grade examples exist aplenty and they don't even know we exist.
Which was my last point. GOOD ideas don't NEED marketing.... Ever seen a commercial or ad for twitter or youtube? Their value prop is very clear. get an audience. Get paid. And they were tiny once too, so we can't blame it on being "new" as a platform either, we're half those systems age here overall. (aside from the forkening, steem/hive blur together enough to fit this context)
Because if we really had a value prop, we'd have the audience and they'd want to be in front of it. But the value prop being pitched doesn't match the experience upon arrival.
I dunno man, maybe I'm not as articulate about this as I could be. But something ain't right.
And that's the hard part, everywhere. Audiences aren't easily transfered between those platforms either. Someone can be successful on YouTube, but not on Instagram. All depends on the effort they put into those platforms.
@pharesim is not wrong here. Just like with any other social, if there is any proof of work at all, it takes time and effort and work to "invest" stake. And it is possible. And it would be imbalanced if newbies got freebies. But you are right, there needs to be a little bit more in the way of RC and voting status when you start. Zero is ineffective and a deterrent.
One thing the TT is doing right is EVERYONE gets voting status when you start. You get access to 300 "friends" as it were with every single post. Friends vote you up based on metrics such as "likes," "duration," "comments," and so forth.
Perhaps trying an algorithm that caters FYP feeds based on keywords rather than follows would be a good start.
Too funny @ the one overlorda. !LOLZ ya heard?
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They each got six months.
Credit: vcclothing
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I keep forgetting to vote that porn post, I've looked at 5000 times. 😝 !PIMP !LOLZ !hiqvote
Said what I eluded to on the comments of that half-ass proposal. Good to have ya back btw. Always loved your style. Make me wanna be a witness again 😁
A witness again? I'm open to partnership offers. I can be bought ;) That's how this works, right?
All day 😁
You must be killin' it out here!
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As a visual thinker, Hive often feels like a sprawling, uncharted territory to me. A vast expanse filled with promise, yet tangled in a dense undergrowth of information. It's a place where treasures undoubtedly exist, but they're hidden beneath layers of the ordinary. Every day, I embark on an expedition, hoping to unearth those sparkling gems of creativity and connection. I've found myself sharing my discoveries with others, only to be met with skepticism. It's as though I'm alone in seeing the gold within the rough. Their doubts cast a long shadow, threatening to dim my enthusiasm. But then, a flicker of recognition ignites. A single soul connects with my work on a profound level, and in that moment, the entire landscape transforms. It's a validation that fuels my spirit, a reminder that even amidst the chaos, there is purpose.
ChatGPT+yusaymon
I'm a visual person, so Hive often feels like a cluttered toolbox to me. It's chaos! I dive in every day, hunting for those shiny gold nuggets, but they're buried in dirt, and no one seems to care about polishing them up. I remember telling a friend I was doing well on Hive, and they laughed, saying it was a waste of time. Most people ignore my posts, but when someone truly connects with my work, it feels incredible. It's like finding that one person who sees the potential in a rough diamond. Hive is still young, and I'm passionate about its growth into something amazing.
yusaymon
Good lord that was poetic. And you may be visual, but your words painted a picture. A thought provoking picture. It's what I meant when I said there were so many great people here enjoying each other and maybe that was enough. And maybe it is for many folks, but the idea was to also make some money from it, to be blunt about the point, otherwise we could just go join facebook groups to find nice people.
But that doesn't detract from the fact that your hot take is a good one and a beautiful way to look at the chaos and find the tools you were looking for in the cluttered box.
Gosh its good to know you are well.
I write it in spanish and chat gpt goes more poétic in the first part, Yeah fren still in Perú thanks God continuing with My art and Crypto moves... Lets see wha happen here being honest here still feels real yeah Is money involved but with really good propuse sometimes.
SEE You around Cork!
I'll be here buddy! We'll catch up privately soon in discord or something. Right now I'm in a community meeting on a call :)
As someone who's come back to Hive after a while, I agree with a lot here. While Hive still gets a lot right compared to lots of other blockchains/social media platforms, the idea of users getting a bigger say in how things are done/how resources are distributed solely because they have a bigger balance has always been something that's concerned me about PoS and systems like it. That being said, the fact that a post like this has even made its way across my feed and not been downvoted into obscurity is proof enough to me that all is not lost and things still have the potential to change for the better. Otherwise there wouldn't be much of a point in making a post to talk about it, would there?
I have been absent for a few years before I returned so I don't have the most informed perspective with which to make any sort of suggestions, but I will say that I returned to find a good portion of this community still active, still doing good things both on and off-chain and doing what they can to make this place better and show that it still has the potential to be so. That alone makes it worth sticking around for the time being, at least for me.
It's quite possible my post made it to you through a reblog. I have prior time served here and used to be a top witness and community leader and such, so I have reach beyond that of the typical "day zero noobie".
Or it could have been the sheer momentum of this post trending a little bit too.
But either way, pleased to meet you and hear your views and experiences!
Looks like the former, either way, glad to be here.
Glad to have you :)
Well for being back for a few days you have got some eyes on your post for sure. Overtime I have always tried to stay engaged in these ecosystems and certain things have really impressed me overtime. I wasn't even aware of the Splinterlands situation until a couple of days ago. I guess I was just in my own little world.
It's okay if you were in your own little world. It's probably better in fact, than the main street of this dystopian world at large 🙃
My daughter (now 31yo) had a little t-shirt when she was in grade school that said:
I'm in my own little world, but it's okay. They know me here.
So you'll be okay, in your own little world, at least you're amongst friends 😃
Hahah, very true
I think that true decentralization is difficult to obtain. It has been tried lots in the "analog" world and greed and money get in the way so you end up with oligarchies and cartels forming. Pioneerism is also a problem (those who get there first grab the goodies leaving crumbs for those that follow. Thus producing fuck all incentive for latecomers.)
To be honest I don't know what the solution is as you need to drive people to join in without the expectation of instant profit. My guess that it would have to be some form of power or gamification but that is a fucking vague concept. It also would have to not become a job to the point where it interferes with real life.
I think a LOT Of my issues could be fixed by - as determined by various comment threads in here leading to realizations - is that a real crux problem is the messaging of "get paid to blog" (more or less) and then finding out its stake based after you get here, try things that you cant do effectively and learn you kinda gotta pay to play and earn. or you'll be a LONNNNG time before its "blog and get paid" for the typical starter day zero noob.
So better explaining at the beginning on ALL the various sign up sites.
Well yeah. That's the effects of pioneerism and tempting people in only to disappoint them. You've knocked out a way better article than I can address btw.
Thanks for the read all teh same!
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I don't see RC being much of a hassle. In the same way I don't think my remote is broken if I forgot to put batteries in.
RC is free. Even if one is buying a little bit of HP in order to get RC, there's still no cost. All you're doing taking money out of one of your wallets and putting it in another one of your wallets.
Supporting someone is similar. Why does this new member need to depend on existing HP holders? All their supporters need to do is take money from their wallet and put it inside their wallet here and can then support, for free. Actually at that point the supporter is now earning to be supportive and the one seeking support is receiving support at the same time.
So in essence, what you have described is that it's "pay to play". And as a basic premise, that's quite common and totally acceptable.
Except that's not what we advertise this to be in the first place. When I returned I was able to make my post and even reply to some early comments because I had some dust in my wallet from earlier times, about $11 usd worth across the various types of wallet coinage combined. But by the time I had responded to just a couple of comments on my post I was stuck for 24 hours, until a friend saw me mention that off platform and sent me a small delegation to resume my replies.
Later that night I told another contact I had come back and they decided to revisit their old account as well, but it had an empty wallet and they could not even make a greeting post at all.
If that's the experience for the completely uninitiated, well, can you imagine, after all the other onboard complexity, why we might not have widespread adoption and growth?
If we were very clear up front, that participation even at the most fundamental levels comes at a price, well fine, but we don't have a sign on the door for that at all. It's confusing and nonsensical to people who come from every other social media platform in the world covering their free and unlimited activity with the advertising price on their heads. Not saying that's better, but why would I blog here when I can freely publish 100000 other places? And if it's only about getting paid to blog, why should I pay to be paid?
Before you start explaining, I certainly understand the differences and even the reasons we are different, but the limits are so frustrating and to some degree unnecessary, that its clearly part of the reason we have retention issues and engagement issues and growth issues.
Even the pay to play systems, have a free to play mode. You just don't get all the benefits or rewards. There has to be a better way. What it is? If I knew for sure, I'd probably build it and get rich. But certainly we didn't have this issue in the earliest days before RC, you would need a delegation to have a useful vote or your own money, but we didn't stop you from helping build the content or participating in general. That's a problem, Houston.
The solution is already in place. Decentralized. We're all in control, of ourselves, and that's it.
You could step up and be the provider of the RC yourself. In the same way someone helped you. You're concerned with this, and that's how you can do something about it.
Something like SPL onboards plenty and provides the RC.
My problem with that is it's a free handout. If people don't get on their own feet, eventually could run into a situation where there's not enough to hand out. And that would be SPL's responsibility. A problem they'd need to solve, in order to meet their own demands.
Early on when RC was introduced, one need to delegate HP. That means for everyone I hook up, something like the value of my vote for instance is steadily decreasing. That's costing me, and making it difficult for me to support them and several others. Now, we can delegate RC directly. I'm sitting on a massive pile right now. Need some? In my mind it's like providing training wheels if it's a complete noob. I cringe when I hook people up, they finally get some HP of their own, and do everything they can to sell it. Can be a royal pain the ass sometimes especially when one could only delegate HP.
And this RC thing has been around since steemit.
I am good on RC, it's taken care of because I knew people. And I'm quite certain I'll end up paying it forward to someone or someones as well, just as I used to do the same with delegations when I maintained a funded account, was a top witness etc etc in the past.
It's not a matter of me not understanding how it works, it's a matter of completely thwarting new registrants from their first day. You can't say "post and earn!" as your mantra and then the reality be "you can sorta look around, but it will cost you to do much else and eventually you might earn, but only if you manage to last that long" first.
Yes its "been around since steemit" but only the very last days of steemit. I believe I was still running a node when it happened, even. And I didn't like it then either. When you joined steemit in the old days, you paid to sign up, it was like 6 steem or something, but it cost you, and it was advertised as such. Some communities sponsored free reg methods and covered it, ("something like SPL onboards people and provides the RC") while still other people paid to come in and play. And you were weak when you came in that way, but you weren't impotent completely.
As for SPL providing the RC etc bit, yes, thus eliminating the very same RC problem for their players that we are discussing right here itself. They have to do that, because otherwise nobody would or rather could play at all. Your solution there solves the problem Im presenting perfectly. It removes the problem that would otherwise stop the growth of their game. See how that works? Remove the problem or lose the players. Now do the whole ecosystem....
RC isn't money. The idea was never about "handouts" since it's not money at all, and that's a mistaken take from my point of view. But it takes some money to have some so its conflicting in itself. RC was always about restricting accounts from posting bulk spam to farm rewards, and honestly, at this point, there are other mechanisms preventing that from being a way to do much anyway, especially without at least one funded account to drive the upvote farm in the first place.
So it's a bit like locking a 2 foot tall fence. It's not really protecting anyone from much of anything but its keeping the "honest people" locked out to some degree at the time when they should be most enthusiastically diving in headlong and learning to love the place.
Just because someone said "post and earn," that doesn't mean that's what we do here. That's just someone operating in a decentralized environment, providing their vision, and maybe not explaining things properly.
I'll go tell DPresident. lol
Also, a few months ago I watched Vibes onboard quite a few musicians. Because they had guidance, there were issues of course, but someone was there to help.
RC is the reason this platform isn't a dumping ground. Look around. It's like one of those robot vacuums.
But it's not up to Hive to solve these problems. Hive is an inanimate object.
Dpresident made me spit my coffee through my nose 🤠
Hive is a dynamic software system, far from inanimate in this specific context. A program, which is defined as a set of operating instructions for the machine and in our context also rules for the user's operations. I am merely pointing out that either the rules need to be posted on the door like they were when we DID have big adoption 7 or 8 years ago, or they need careful reconsideration because I think the limits they enforce may create more difficulty for the ecosystem than they prevent. In that sense, it's entirely up to the Hive ruleset to be the place where such problems are solved. Or at least the registration page instruction set.
P.S. Dpresident cracks me up.
So. Let's talk about this registration page.
Which one? Would you like to tell LEO how to write theirs? SPL, Liketu, and so on.
It's not like it was back in the day. I still chuckle that we all got away with calling it Stinc. We don't even have those posts any more where we'd all go gather, all walks of life from every direction, and yell at them.
People run their businesses and if their guidance isn't sufficient, it'll come to a point where they have no choice but to fix their problems.
These days we have communities. There's always someone at the helm and a lot of members willing to help on their own. Even those intro posts. Been awhile since I looked but usually there's someone spamming a really shitty, overwhelming, TMI comment to every noob walking in the door, explaining things like RC.
I've sat with inexperienced members, explaining things.
To me, it's just life. If you want to drive, one learns how to drive first. People, for centuries, have been fine with that.
https://peakd.com/about/faq
$PIZZA slices delivered:
(1/5) @bulliontools tipped @sircork
Welcome back!
I don't understand your point about the porn post. It's not highly rewarded at all. It makes sense that it was viewed more often than a post about Hive, since it offers a popular service (although it links to different AI tools than it describes), while it's receiving links from a larger spam network (at least from Reddit). And maybe fake views too - OK, that could be a problem.
As far as I know, the Most Viewed page also counts views from people who don't have a Hive account. It's not the front page, l wouldn't worry too much about it.
Well, when you come to a site and look at trending and most viewed posts, you expect to see the "best" content, or at least something that approximates that.
But if you look at that particular post, it has an entry level "rep", it's the only post on the account that was created just this month, it has essentially no votes to speak of and those votes are weightless, so how does such a thing not only become the top post on the explore section, but linger there for days on end - which is what in turn got it even more views from the curious, not because its "quality content" but simply because it's almost unavoidable to see it and naturally people here would want to know what about it caused it to get any attention at all. Which perpetuated it.
It's an odd anomaly basically. New users who don't have a ton of people they follow are naturally going to use "explore" options to begin their journey here and that's what we're showing them? It's just... weird AF, simple as that.
How did it ever get there in the first place? A zero day user, with no followers or follows, no votes, no other content. That's not how this is supposed to work at all.
Further, if it IS supposed to work that way, how come all the folks with similar new stats but posting legitimate non-spam content are NOT getting up there? See the paradox there?
And thanks for the welcome! It's great to be back amongst friends and foes and having fun on the platform again, but its also surreal how the landscape of people has both completely changed and at the same time, somehow completely stayed exactly the same!
You don't like the new PoP system (proof of pants)?
Not if the pants are all at the top, I prefer my pants to end up on the floor.
I prefer to be the one who "wears the pants"
What about miniskirts?
I'm pretty sure this is not a hive-centric issue. I think the HOPE was that we'd be smarter and more elite than those OTHER platforms, but low-brow entertainment is what sells, whether the fate is left in the hands of the poor or the wealthy.