[IMAGE: https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/valued-customer/23t773pRVYb1qrjGAnDtqHryxz9VsQENnv5hHTNYRDSYfyd7zagwU8DUHjSmE7FD1vuou.png]
IMG source - peakd.com
Valueplan has posted seeking comment from the Hive userbase. This is the comment I left there.
>"To create the 2025 general marketing strategy for Hive we need to outline our main goals. Our current goals are:
>"Increase listings, integrations and partnerships
>"Inspire investment in HIVE and HBD and increase their utility
>"Onboarding and retention of long-term community members"
Since I began using Hive's progenitor in May 2017 I have observed as more than a million people undertook the onboarding process and learning curve to join the community and contribute posts and comments to our library of content. I have watched them leave too, as we have ejected them. That library and satisfied users is all the marketing program Hive needs. The market will not be fooled by tricks or gimmicks without content of interest presented by a satisfied userbase. The vast majority of reasonable people lost any respect and confidence in the platform when bidbots were allowed to operate, and rightly so. The primacy of greed, of grubby, filthy lucre being the sole purpose of every act, of every aspect of the code, could hardly have been better demonstrated.
During this same period social media has risen to become the largest sector of the global financial market, demonstrating that people face existential threats they seek means to secure themselves, their communities, and property from that mere pecuniary interest is immaterial to. Hive's demonstrable maximization of financial interest has prevented it's utility to that market, and is why it has the worst retention of users in the social media market.
Hive's underlying offer to the market of a social media platform that resists censorship and enables people to earn from their posts through micropayments from their audience, instead of the advertising model of web2 social media platforms that remunerate only the most popular creators, has not failed to attract users, but it has failed to retain them because it did not live up to it's offer. The narrative wasn't left to the creators, the people discussing the things that matter to them, but has been managed for the purposes of the majority owners of the platform, which is and has been ~3 dozen whales.
The market revealed that onboarding was not the problem. The UI was not the problem. The platform failed to deliver meaningful censorship resistance. It failed to deliver even modest earnings to the vast majority of those users. After overcoming onboarding and UI issues these users began to post and comment, and then encountered unrestrained taxation of their author rewards as the whales' minions used their ninjamined stakes to flag them continually, zeroing their rewards serially until they left. The bidbots were almost worse than the flaggots at destroying Hive's reputation and userbase, but the two together rightly caused respect and confidence in the platform to evaporate.
Almost every user that joined the platform quit because the dynamic offered was not what was actually delivered. Rather than provide a list of the folks that were flagged off the platform, let's do the opposite: make a list of folks that have joined and stayed, particularly those with substantial audiences, so called 'influencers'. The number that came and tried to make a go of it shows that the onboarding process and the UI didn't prevent them from posting. They were driven off after they came. Retention is basically zero.
Zero.
It doesn't matter that any of us might disagree with any or all of their views or how popular they were. Any and all of these views are part of the conversations and ferment of the free speech market which Hive is dependent on serving, and only insofar as Hive allows the market to self regulate can Hive prosper as the platform on which that occurs. Hive has not allowed that market to operate, and Hive does not prosper. There are two options the market has regarding a product: to buy the product or not to buy the product. But that is pure free market capitalism, and the platform can allow producers to prosper or tax their production intolerably. Hive hasn't just favored some producers over others. It has suppressed all of them equally with unrestrained taxation.
As Hive taxed their income here to prevent them earning rewards, it cut it's own throat. Many of them continue to thrive on other platforms, which reveals that Hive is less able than those platforms at enabling free speech to earn it's creators income. Hive will continue to be outperformed by other platforms that do not financially oppress and censor free speech as much as Hive does. Hive has burned through the market of early adopters, and those that have been driven off tell people what happened. That is Hive's marketing program in operation. As long as new people onboarded, their investments could be absorbed, but now that very few make the attempt that income has dried up, leaving only the cash on hand - the DHF - left for the whales to extract.
As long as unrestrained taxation continues - and it continues to this day - Hive will drive users away, and it's userbase will continue to shrink. Accordingly, Valueplan is not surmounting the one challenge that prevents Hive from growing and increasing the value of it's token, which is retention of users. The power to elect witnesses governs Hive, and has since the advent of it's progenitor. ~3 dozen accounts today retain the majority of stake in Hive, and thus completely control governance. Distribution of Hive has not decentralized and this maintains governance centralized in those ~3 dozen accounts.
What Valueplan could do is to curate posts from people that post on Hive to encourage them to continue posting on Hive, with the strictest mechanisms to exclude bots and socks from such curation. It could completely counter every DV that isn't cast on spam or a scam. Finally, it could DV votebots and similar scams that continue to operate on Hive. ~3 dozen whales (or some subset) fund spaminator, hw, and etc. to DV users and drive them away. Censorship of the free speech published on Hive has nothing to do with spam or scams, but ensures continued centralization of governance by preventing distribution. I expect them to continue to secure the whales' sole and exclusive power to govern Hive until the last satoshi of value has been wrung from it, the witnesses give up, and it ceases to exist.
Every lame argument that DV's aren't censorship, aren't taxation, and don't matter can be trotted out as they have been for the last 7 years to no avail. If Hive surmounts the user retention issue, every other goal of Valueplan is either the natural consequence of a growing userbase and token increasing in value, or is greatly facilitated by those metrics, and nothing else Valueplan - or anything else - can do will. Every other expenditure of funds will simply fritter away those funds without benefit to the platform and it's community. However, funds disbursed by Valueplan do seem to benefit some specific people.
>"Value Plan is a community-driven marketing and promotion initiative and to function as intended requires feedback."
I find this statement utterly contradicted by the refusal to provide receipts for expenditures that are necessary to verify funds are utilized for stated purposes. Multiple parties (@hecatonquirox, @atlashv96, @doze, and others) have stated that Valueplan has facilitated criminal fraud (it's possible people have already contacted tips.fbi.gov or other law enforcement agencies with evidence of such fraud. Given the interest of the US State Department in Venezuela it would be unwise of them to fail to proactively address any potential to be accused of funding terrorism), and despite providing receipts for expenditures could disprove those accusations @guiltyparties has directly refused to provide receipts for those specific expenditures. @lordbutterfly has received substantial payment he has falsely claimed he did not.
>"The only thing I was paid for is organizing Hivefest."
@guiltyparties is preventing accounting for Valueplan disbursements. Disbursements that cannot be accounted for cannot be funded without facilitating fraud, and fraud is reported by several eyewitnesses with direct knowledge. @guiltyparties is facilitating fraud. @lordbutterfly is lying about some of the largest disbursements Valueplan makes. Valueplan has given every indication it is a vector for fraud and theft of the large sums of money it disburses, and there's much more evidence than I provide here. More information is available in the detailed posts @blanchy has made regarding Valueplan, and in comments and posts from accounts mentioned above, which anyone considering Valueplan or anyone involved in it should read and understand before voting on any proposal or participating in any endeavor it, or any of it's principals, are involved in.
I don't use Hive as money, and work for a living, so my interest and availability to investigate these matters has been too limited to exhaust the copious evidence of fraud available onchain. Every inquiry I have made leads to the same obfuscation, lies, and fraud that appear to be the purpose of Valueplan's disbursements, without exception. My only involvement is as a Hive user with interest in the DHF benefiting Hive, but after seven years observing the maintenance of governance by the whales I do not have any hope that will change. Folks with substantial stake, or intent to acquire substantial stake, or that have accepted Valueplan funds innocently should address these matters diligently. $M's are flowing out of the DHF, and stripping businesses of their cash on hand is a common practice of vulture capitalists like KKR and Bain Capital Partners, and that looks like what is happening to Hive.
I am confident victims of fraud have reported it to law enforcement, and enforcement will follow investigation, exacerbated by political interest in Venezuela. Sadly this threatens good people with integrity who have received funds from Valueplan, may have never suspected such accusations existed, and who would be wise to keep receipts and document carefully any interactions with Valueplan or it's principals to prove they aren't committing theft by fraud, or worse. Someone is, or will follow the money. Criminals offer up scapegoats as patsies, and will make you a patsy if they can. The best way to prove you are innocent is to not take money from suspect sources.
Because of this taint I can only recommend Valueplan provide accurate and verifiable accounting and receipts for every expense it has incurred and all funds it has disbursed. No strategy will matter until that taint is dispelled because failure to verifiably account disbursements facilitates fraud. Until accurate and verifiable accounting of Valueplan's disbursement of funds is made I strongly recommend everyone vote the return proposal instead of anything related to Valueplan, and that everyone that has been involved in Valueplan take action to fully account for any disbursements from Valueplan to prove their innocence.
> Omg, you genuinely believe that all that money went to me personally?
To be honest, some of the things that valued-customer points out - sound totally reasonable and plausible - for a random reader that just shows up, has no idea about the plot&history&origins, reads (sic!) what one or other side writes now, and well, yeah, that transfer to that account definitely can look like - a transfer to that account. Money sent, money received, why/when/what happens next is kinda secondary ... to an ignorant reader.
I can totally understand how someone can be angry, or at least, have their curiosity piqued, seeing this transfer.
But after actually reading what you wrote.. Yeah, I see your point too. I was there too. I mean, in this kind of situations. I was accused by neighoburs of defrauding money that were pooled up for a shared goal, while in fact it was all spent, and I still had a little box with cents and dimes of change left after, and I also silently added some cash to the pool "for the good of all". My personal time and literal manual labor (that they all saw) spent on that not even counted in as a "cost" of the project. And in the result and had to fight off accusations for a few weeks, because angry mob grew faster than one me explaining and countering arguments. I bet some of them still remember me as a fraud despite whatever proofs I showed them.
Fun fact - my dad had exactly the same thing, with their parents, 15-20 years earlier. At least twice, in two separate projects to improve residential infrastructure around us.
Seems times change, people change, but people's mentality doesn't, eh?
One thing that I learned from that is, if you ever receive any funds and perform anything for "charity", "common good", or whatever similar, have a goddamn blunt clear invoices for everything. If you care about your own "reputation" that is.
If "angry mob" gathers, won't look at them, because it's not the point. The point is to be angry and to have a target and to meet in a crowd or to feel included with a group.
Have it all gathered, catagorized, tallied up in a spreadsheet. Over half of the complainers won't read anything other than final in-out amounts, if they even take a look at all. Post it in public and tell it's all there, that they can inspect and check, and that they can sue you if they want, because it's all good.
Now magically complaints disappear. Everyone assumes "others were angry, they will check". And probably noone does. Or if someone does, does it really good, revealing all the holes in what I/you/one thought was transparent and clear. Eh.
OTOH, heh, I think I'm still a bit grumpy about that event after all those years :) But I think if back then I really did what I just wrote, I'd have much less problems. But then, with the amount of work I have already spent, I'm not sure I'd be willing to add more work to improve the documentation&transparency just in case someone might question something.. but in turn, doing so, might jsut be the reasonable self-preservation instict
Actually, you're defending yourself from accusations that only existed in your head. For some weeks now individuals that say they directly witnessed fraud have been alleging it, and the funds sent your way raised some questions, which were asked. It is your stunning disingenuity, failure to respond to any questions forthrightly, scathing vitriol, and complete inability to actually account for ~$70k of disbursements in just the last month that really sparked suspicion of you personally. Read what I actually wrote, and go back to our original conversations when you immediately began spewing insults and deriding me personally just for asking questions.
No one does business that way. That's what little kids do when they're caught stealing a dollar out of mom's purse, or cheating on a test. You act like no one ever asks questions about how money is spent in business, and that's ridiculous. That's why receipts even exist, why there are accountants and bookkeepers, so that those questions can be resolved satisfactorily proving theft and fraud isn't being committed. But that's not something you even attempted. Instead you've done everything you could to create the impression you didn't get lots of money, and then tried to make asking questions painful by being a complete asshole, and keep trying to make excuses for why you don't have to, or can't, show receipts. You're acting like there isn't an entire industry keeping track of money in business, like you've never heard of fraud and theft by fraud and the whole idea is ridiculous and could never happen in real life. It's the most transparent bullshit I've ever seen in my life.
All I said about you in my post was that you falsely denied being paid that money, because that's what you did when I asked you about it. You were in fact paid that money, which would be true even if you did later use it to pay other people. Whether or not you kept any of it after that doesn't have anything to do with being paid it first. That's the difference between gross and net, not whether you got paid.
So, you're a liar, and it's your lies, verbal tirades, and abuse that created ever increasing suspicion. You're literally the poster child for every cliche about guilty conscience and defending from accusations that were never even made creating suspicion that didn't exist until you freaked out.
Anyone that has read any of that bizarre offensive trying to prevent inquiry into Valueplan disbursements you handled can't help but suspect you've mishandled funds. All you had to do if you were competent and honest when someone inquired about how the money was used is provide some answers about how it was spent in a reasonable, professional manner, but you're so incompetent and emotionally volatile you sperged out like a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
You're really not good at this. You have absolutely no chill, and that attracts attention you don't want to the very thing you're trying to conceal, which is what you actually did with the huge sums of money you flat refuse to disclose. None of that has anything to do with me. What comes out of you is what is in you. What you say reveals who you are. You have created this situation you're in, and now none of the reasonable actions you could have taken will suffice to explain how you've handled the money, because you've made it really obvious you're hiding things and are terrified they'll be discovered. Anger is the child of fear, and your inchoate rage comes from absolute terror.
People you have been dealing with are going to contact you with some advice, if they haven't already. If there's lots of money going missing, they're going to be very motivated to keep you from leading to them. If you are this terrified of answering my questions, I can't even imagine how fast you'll cave being questioned by cops, and that makes you a potential liability to anyone downstream. Good luck, because you have absolutely no skill at this, and you're going to need it if your behaviour is any clue to your integrity.
>"A tax would be taking some of your personal Hive..."
Just like out of your paycheck, right? Exactly the same dynamic as DV's. Exactly the same impact on production. DV's are taxes as far as Hive can reproduce them.
>"...The DHF is not a tax..."
I never implied in any way that it was. The DHF is the Founder's stake that @ned sold to Sun Yuchen, reproduced on Hive as a fund for development. However the whales have a controlling interest in that fund, just as they do in governance. You seem to have some misunderstanding of what I did say, because I never implied the DHF was a tax. DV's are taxes, as close as Hive can get to them. The DHF is like cash on hand, quite the opposite of a tax.
>"The VP passed the proposal fair and square..."
The stake has spoken. It will be disbursed without receipts, without accounting, and everything is just fine, trust the whales, pleb.
@guiltyparties isn't just 'some people'. It's a simple thing to account for expenditures. I did it yesterday when I purchased materials. $M's are being spent with nary a receipt in sight. Multiple people allege fraud, and the only means of disproving their allegations, which you can read for yourself to ascertain their credibility, is to account for expenditures with receipts. There is no accounting, and that is facilitation of fraud.
>"...it's slander."
No, if I made a malicious statement in written media, it would be libel. Slander is verbal, libel is written. However, what I said was "@guiltyparties is preventing accounting for Valueplan disbursements. Disbursements that cannot be accounted for cannot be funded without facilitating fraud, and fraud is reported by several eyewitnesses with direct knowledge. @guiltyparties is facilitating fraud."
That's not libel. Those are facts.
>"...just because they don't give you or your friends money..."
I demanded @guiltyparties show receipts when multiple people alleged fraud because that would prove there was no fraud. Everything he said in response to those accusations reeked of disingenuity, and finally he flatly refused to provide receipts.
Look at my account. Note the date when I interacted with any of the people involved. None prior to these accusations. Note all the times I cashed out of Hive. Zero. I've never once taken a slim dime out of Hive. Speaking of libel, you are making up accusations out of hole cloth with absolutely no evidence whatsoever maliciously. Perhaps know something about the people you're bad mouthing before you do it.
>"...this is happening in Venezuela, where the FBI has no jurisdiction."
Tell that to Julian Assange. However, many of the users of Hive are not in Venezuela, and US laws govern many financial matters that involve sending money to Venezuela. For a variety of reasons, mostly bad, even criminal IMHO, the USA is extremely dedicated to economic sanctions on Venezuela, and disbursing funds in which Americans have a financial interest or bear fiduciary responsibility without any accounting for where that money goes is a great way to attract the interest of financial crimes and even terrorist funding investigators. Cuba isn't in the FBI's bailiwick either, but Venezuela is very cautious about providing the oil Cuba desperately needs, because of American sanctions on Cuba.
Hive should not be poking that bear by disbursing funds that could be buying AK-47's for all we know. It doesn't even matter if we think that very thought is ridiculous, because it matters if it could be useful politically to evil bastards that could care less about any facts of the matter.
>"Are you willing to pay $100 to $200 an hour for a CPA to audit every single expense the value plan has?"
Are you completely unfamiliar with doing business? Where did I demand an audit? Where did I mention a CPA? The money spent was spent on specific items that commonly generate receipts. When I buy materials I get a receipt. It doesn't take any CPA's or audits to provide receipts. I provide those receipts on the jobs I do so that there is no question of whether the money was spent on materials instead of hookers and blow. I do that so there is no question as to my integrity, so the people I do work for can be absolutely sure I am not committing fraud and stealing their money. It costs absolutely nothing to do.
That's how honest work is done.
@guiltyparties has spent a few hours arguing there is nothing but misunderstandings, which the parties alleging fraud absolutely deny. He could prove there is no fraud easily, without expense of any kind, or hours of arguing, by just providing receipts. As I do. As all honest people do. Instead he's spending a lot of time arguing against it.
>"...they just got votes to take and spend some inflation."
No, that's not where the DHF comes from. The DHF has nothing to do with inflation. It was ninjamined stake in Steem @ned and @dan created before the code to mine Steem was released to the public, that @ned eventually sold to Sun Yuchen. When Hive was created that stake was reproduced as the DHF. In a sense everyone on Hive has an interest in those funds, proportional to their stake. The DHF is a fund you have an interest in, and Valueplan is spending your money, and mine, and everyone on Hive, too.
You have misunderstood some things, unfortunately, and particularly the specific accusations I have made. I did not allege there was fraud. I said there were eyewitness allegations of fraud, which I provided links to. I said @guiltyparties is facilitating fraud by not verifiably accounting for the expenditures Valueplan is making in Venezuela, which means that money could be spent on anything, such as kickbacks. I pointed out that the USA has economic sanctions on Venezuela that make that a dangerous thing to do that could cause Hive all sorts of problems we don't need, and all he has to do to prevent all those problems is to provide receipts, which he has refused to do.
That's very sus.
There are links to accounts that Valueplan principals control that funds are being sent to from accounts of people in Venezuela that receive funds from Valueplan. That suggests kickbacks that would be a reason to vote for Valueplan, a mechanism to mine the DHF and strip it of cash.
None of this is necessary for Valueplan to promote Hive with calisthenics exhibitions because receipts would prove that expenditures for merch and equipment were made to actual retailers instead of extracted by fraud. Every time you spend money at a retailer you get a receipt. If you spend someone elses money you give them the receipt and their change. That's how honest people work.
That's not how Valueplan is working.
