I was discussing some Hive points around the benefits of staking and how the biggest challenge facing Hive is attracting end users, not developers or creatives. I stated the issue as, An audience has to be attracted away from where they are currently consuming, which is very difficult as they are already consuming a lot and much of it is forced down their throat by centralized curation. It is where their friends are, it is polished and pretty, it is convenient - it is risk free.
>Using Hive as one's primary social media is also completely risk free. What is there to lose?@markkujantunen
This is correct, Hive is risk free in some ways and there is very little to lose in trying, but this isn't the same as trying a new food or hobby, as that is not the way most people are introduced to Hive. Most people are presented the "getting paid" part and I believe this comes saddled with assumptions and expectations.
[IMAGE: https://files.steempeak.com/file/steempeak/tarazkp/Pbx6d0GZ-honeycomb.png]
I think that firstly, people are likely to believe that it is some kind of scam, as many are already wary of the "earn online" nonsense that much of the internet is known for. The next thing is that it can also seem too good to be true or that the chance of getting paid isn't good. Some people get paid through Instagram, Twitter and Facebook - but no normal user joined up there in order to earn from the get-go, it was purely consumptive - however some expanded into earning from that point.
I think the other thing that would likely come up is that getting paid to contribute comes with the feeling of work and for most, work rarely comes with a positive feeling. Not only that, while people add stuff to social media all of the time, once a "reward" is available, the concept of social judgement comes into play in a different way. Getting judged on opinion is one thing, getting judged on skills quite another and many people are quite fearful of this. Not getting paid not only doesn't attract as critical eye from the audience, it also gives an excuse for not being better -
>professionals get paid, not amateurs.
On most other social media platforms where people spend their time, people do not know how much those who get paid get, they don't necessarily even know who actually gets paid. Is an "influencer" getting paid, free merchandise or are the parents footing the bill? When we do actually know someone is getting paid, it is the star level kinds of people like Christiano Ronaldo, who got paid 60 million for a handful of paid posts on Instagram, 3x that of his salary of performing his prodession. But, he is famous, he is someone, he already has a following.
>Who am I to get paid for my random amateur nonsense?
That is rhetorical - I am no one. As are we all. Just like the markets, who we are doesn't matter as much as the sentiment concerning who we are. For example, the small difference in skill at professional levels matters less than the hype a person can create surrounding who they are. The top graduates from an Ivy league school for example, will earn more than those just below, even though the grades are very similar. Perception matters, things like reputation and expectation.
While I know that most people don't think about these things directly or at depth, I believe that when a user is presented with the "get paid to blog" scenario, they immediately think, "what would I blog about that is worth getting paid for" and it doesn't matter if told that it doesn't matter, just do what you normally do on other platforms.
Getting paid comes saddled with ingrained expectations of many kinds and social risks come into play. Trying a new food or starting a new hobby has less risk from the get go as very few try a food or start a hobby with the expectation that they are going to get paid for it, at least not from other people sitting in the restaurant or in the class.
Don't you find it interesting that on Hive, we pay each other? You should, because this is the future of ownership and consumption - a far more direct relationship between supplier and consumer with far less middlemen. This is not the normal order of business on other platforms as while consumers pay, the platform distributed.
But, a new potential user doesn't know anything about this, they have no idea what the platform is about and do not consider it an investment vehicle or a place to hang out, because, they are already hanging out somewhere else and investing into social media isn't really possible without buying stocks.
In my view, there are many reasons why someone would be scared to join Hive and a lot of it comes down to their previous experiences on the internet in general and with social media. Money from the internet sounds like a scam, social media is something that people do for free. Most do know that the large companies are making bundles of cash off of their users, but don't know any users who are actually making money from social media. We might have a higher rate of awareness here, but how many people do you know in your real-world social circles who make money from posting online?
As said, perception matters and the perception that many people have of earning online opportunities is either not good or, considered out of their reach. I think that this sets up a mental/ emotional hurdle that stops many people from putting their hat in the ring and giving it a go. The last barrier I will mention here is social proofing.
>If this is so good, why aren't more people here?
What I believe is that if there were more people here that people actually knew (like friends, family and celebrities which the other platforms leverage), more people would be willing to join as it has been "pre-approved" by their peers, it has been normalized. Even for many of the people who have given Hive a go, this isn't normal and they aren't so keen to invite their friends and family onto the platform - which creates a catch-22 for the platform too.
Perhaps the only way around this is for a Hive application to become very popular and attract many users without having them go through the Hive learning curve, one that requires a paradigm shift. Instead, they come in through a mass gateway and then filter out as the success of one application will inspire more development and gateways to explore. Some percentage of the arrivals will get interested in the platform to start learning and investing, which will create a similar mass of users for the investment side, normalizing investing directly into a platform and creating that direct relationship between consumer and contributor.
The mechanisms surrounding creator and consumer rewards are obviously a vital part of the equation, but due to most people off-platform not really having any understanding of what this all means, it also becomes a hurdle.
Something interesting happened the other day while sitting around with my colleagues. I have mentioned that I write during the course of the discussion, one of them mentioned an article of mine she had read about my daughter and how moving it was. She doesn't have an account here. How long until she joins? Now, I could force the matter and she will join under my guidance, but doing it upon her own volition means she is opting-in and there is power is that - when the decision is our own, we are more likely to invest ourselves to discover further and, more likely to consider the decision we made as good.
When we try a new restaurant we will often over-reward the experience and tell others. However, when we try a new restaurant based on the recommendation of friends, we will evaluate it based on their opinion and we will have set expectations. Food is pretty simple, Hive is not and a lot of people doing the onboarding have either already overcome all of the hurdles to be well versed and therefore forgetful of the challenges of the technical side and the paradigm shift required, or not have much of an understanding past "get paid". Either way - it can make trying Hive difficult.
>Should people join and try?
Of course! But it isn't as easy for many people as some people might think. I remember posting my first post and the trepidation I had at the time. It was a piece others had seen and liked, but when I put it here, it felt different. The only difference?
There was the potential for it to earn something.
It changes things dramatically.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
I am very interested to hear your own experiences and opinions around this area.
>So far the substance of your criticism towards Hive has been that there's too much circle jerking (large stakeholders giving each other large upvotes in a circle) going on.
That's a small part of it, but there other issues that I would say are even more important. I would strongly suggest, that feedback from users in the early stages of their blockchain experience is the most important and valuable feedback for improving the retention rate. Even if those users don't understand the platform and technology well, there still needs to be an emphasis on getting feedback on what they feel comfortable with, and what they don't in general. I'm not a huge fan of discord as a way to do that myself, as I think it's too maze like and tricky for some new people. It get's the job done though, so that's fine.
Let me also say, that circle jerking is inevitable. We all do it to some extent. It's just a natural thing that creeps in after a period of time on any platform. In fact communities, make that even more prevalent than before. But at least there is a common interest there, so it's understandable.
I think we have drifted off into a different discussion for the most part now, so...It's not my place to give an opinion on what others think. I suggested that some of the bigger users on here take more notice of the opinions and ideas of the smaller and medium sized users. That was really the only point I was trying to make.
>By the way, you really added nothing to the conversation. You threw a generic accusation of Hive inluencers "not getting" what outsiders think while not elaborating at all what you think it is that they're oblivious of.
That quote is from your original reply. I did say what they are oblivious about. What others think, not what I think. The "outsiders".
>I'm not part of any circle jerks with large accounts and I've never been. Yet, I'm quite happy with my earnings because I know I couldn't have earned anywhere near as much on them on any other platform. If I've been able to do it on less than stellar content the kind couldn't have earned anything anywhere else, so can a lot of other people. What's great about this place is that it's perfectly good for the very same activities as any other social media platform while offering the possibility to earn something.
I generally agree with all of that.
>There is a group of people who mined a lot of Steem Power in the beginning many of whom became consensus witnesses. You seem to be saying that I should be horribly envious of these people and harbor a great deal of resentment towards them simply because their early adopter advantage is considerable.
Whether you feel envious or resentful towards that is up to you. I wasn't suggesting you should feel that way;) I was talking about creating networks and influence on the platform. They are not necessarily the same thing.
>The circle jerk criticism, while not completely unfounded, is not fair since there are curation projects with very large amounts of Hive Power that constantly reward very large numbers of content creators for good content. But you will not find a platform anywhere where the distribution of rewards is considerably less top-heavy than on Hive. YouTube, for example, has made its founders extremely wealthy and only the very top of the content creators there earn much of anything.
I don't agree with this. We live on a so-called decentralised platform. Having large curation groups sounds like a good idea, but it creates other problems. Once again, you are creating a small number of accounts with huge influence that hold large sums of "power". That is centralisation of stake in a small number of accounts. They have too much influence on what does, and doesn't get rewarded as a rule.
If you have one curator in one of those groups that has a personality clash with someone on this platfomrm (or knows someone that another person doesn't like), then that user will not get any support from the curation group, whether they have good content or not.
Not only that, but when you go to the discord servers of these large curation groups, the curators are for the most part, the same people across all groups. Do you see the problem here? I can absolutely guarantee you, that this is a big deal. I won't go further than that, on that point:)
>If you have the technical skills or know people who do, then I suggest you create a new fork of Hive and airdrop the tokens to whoever you want. Then you can try and get the token listed by major exchanges. That's how you can build a platform tailored to your own liking. Just do it!
I don't have the skills or know anyone who does. But, it's not about me in general. I have a solution for myself though. Thanks:)
Hey, thanks for your constructive reply.
>"So far the substance of your criticism towards Hive has been that there's too much circle jerking (large stakeholders giving each other large upvotes in a circle) going on."
>That's a small part of it, but there other issues that I would say are even more important. I would strongly suggest, that feedback from users in the early stages of their blockchain experience is the most important and valuable feedback for improving the retention rate. Even if those users don't understand the platform and technology well, there still needs to be an emphasis on getting feedback on what they feel comfortable with, and what they don't in general. I'm not a huge fan of discord as a way to do that myself, as I think it's too maze like and tricky for some new people. It get's the job done though, so that's fine.
That is a really excellent point! I'm not aware of any systematic effort made towards collecting feedback from users, particularly new users.
>Let me also say, that circle jerking is inevitable. We all do it to some extent. It's just a natural thing that creeps in after a period of time on any platform. In fact communities, make that even more prevalent than before. But at least there is a common interest there, so it's understandable.
Yes.
>I think we have drifted off into a different discussion for the most part now, so...It's not my place to give an opinion on what others think. I suggested that some of the bigger users on here take more notice of the opinions and ideas of the smaller and medium sized users. That was really the only point I was trying to make.
That's a good point.
>"By the way, you really added nothing to the conversation. You threw a generic accusation of Hive inluencers "not getting" what outsiders think while not elaborating at all what you think it is that they're oblivious of."
>That quote is from your original reply. I did say what they are oblivious about. What others think, not what I think. The "outsiders".
Fair enough.
>"The circle jerk criticism, while not completely unfounded, is not fair since there are curation projects with very large amounts of Hive Power that constantly reward very large numbers of content creators for good content. But you will not find a platform anywhere where the distribution of rewards is considerably less top-heavy than on Hive. YouTube, for example, has made its founders extremely wealthy and only the very top of the content creators there earn much of anything."
>I don't agree with this. We live on a so-called decentralised platform. Having large curation groups sounds like a good idea, but it creates other problems. Once again, you are creating a small number of accounts with huge influence that hold large sums of "power". That is centralisation of stake in a small number of accounts. They have too much influence on what does, and doesn't get rewarded as a rule.
I agree it's not ideal. Far from it. The original vision for PoB was for the cream of the crop to surface as a result of the wisdom of the crowds. The stake distribution is still not as decentralized as it ideally should be. It's getting there albeit slowly.
But I think it's still much better than circle jerks or vote selling, which is what we had much more of before the Economic Improvement Proposal. Things seem to be slowly getting better insofar as those who get curated power up and grow their influence on the platform.
>If you have one curator in one of those groups that has a personality clash with someone on this platfomrm (or knows someone that another person doesn't like), then that user will not get any support from the curation group, whether they have good content or not.
>Not only that, but when you go to the discord servers of these large curation groups, the curators are for the most part, the same people across all groups. Do you see the problem here? I can absolutely guarantee you, that this is a big deal. I won't go further than that, on that point:)
Despite the imperfections curation projects like @ocdb, @curangel, @curie have managed to spread the rewards to a large number of accounts. For example, @ocdb voted 339 times on posts by 227 accounts in the last seven days. @curangel voted 777 times on posts by 602 authors.
>"If you have the technical skills or know people who do, then I suggest you create a new fork of Hive and airdrop the tokens to whoever you want. Then you can try and get the token listed by major exchanges. That's how you can build a platform tailored to your own liking. Just do it!"
>I don't have the skills or know anyone who does. But, it's not about me in general. I have a solution for myself though. Thanks:)
I wish you success!
