High Horses and Hive's Epitaph

in #hive-167922last year

Before we start, let's clear some things up:

  • Hive is not going to get adopted organically.
  • Being active in Web2 is key to reach our target audience.
  • The BullRun is definitely going to forget about the Hive token if we don't do something now.

This isn't 2017 where users flocked towards Steem Hive when the bull market began and our reward pool did an 8x in a matter of months.

Hive is no longer the only Blockchain that has social media integrated, and we are definitely not the popular one, no matter the Tech and how much of a robust ecosystem we have.

The market gives two craps about our couple dozens dapps that have real use cases, good tokenomics, years in the space, loyal - but tiny - user base, and it completely doesn't care about how decentralized our Layer one is.

We are dinosaurs.

FriendTech, StarsArena and all the other 17 SocialFi platforms that have more monthly active users than Hive have made sure to make this fact clear.

These platforms have been around for around 10% of the time that the Hive Blockchain has been around, and 3% of what the OG Hive community has existed for, and these platforms already dwarf our user base in an almost hilarious fashion.

And we deserve it.

We are writing our Epitaph on a daily basis, and we've been doing it for years.

We can't help it, we have a completely decentralized social media ecosystem built on top of a fee-less, transparent, and powerful Layer one. Writing our own Epitaph without even knowing it was meant to happen, and there's little we will do about it.

This robust swiss knife of Social dapps built on top of Hive has rendered us blind on how much we can exploit web2 to grow the Hive userbase, to a point where those who understand that web2 is a tool for us to get adoption, don't even know how to leverage it to promote Hive.

Because we are spoiled - We have Medium on chain, so why should we use Medium?

We are appeases - We have Reddit communities, so why would we bother in engaging in relevant conversations on Reddit?

We have it easy - We can monetize microblogging, so there's no point in using X.

We are damaged - We own our videos and cannot get censored, so nobody cares about doing Youtube videos.

We are narcissistic - We have the best ecosystem there is out there, so we jump into a high horse where we look down on every web2 platform, and even talk down on their users.

The problem is, we want these users

I have seen it happening several times in front of my eyes.

Almost every single time a Hive users engages with someone in web2, the Hivers are full of themselves, the interactions from the Hiver are condescending, and the end result is that we end up alienating people instead of bringing them to our ecosystem.

And I get it.

We live and breathe real web3, so whenever someone brings in fake web3 or web2.5 we want to jump in a tell them how their take is entirely wrong and how better we have it here.

But man, do we suck at onboarding.

We have immutable digital identities as our main value proposition against web2, and we have content tokenization as a bonus on top of our blockchain database.

But we need to know how to sell this.

The first step is to use web2

Yes, we need to stop depending on web2 to achieve adoption of web3.

100%, centralized web2 sucks and I hate I need to use it to bring new users to Hive.

Hive users should know better about how cancerous web2 practices are.

But we are not there yet.

We are not in a position of openly shitting on web2 and their user base.

We have 10k monthly active users across all the Hive social platforms.

That's nothing.

We are dust.

Fringe basket weaving Romanian communities make the Hive user base look like an unpopular kid's birthday party.

Get off that High Horse

Yes, I get it.

We hate web2.

I am probably one of the biggest haters of web2 here on Hive. I'm pretty radical and it sometimes shows in the X spaces I attend as a speaker, where I end up looking like a conspiranoic schizo that is constantly waiting for the next apocalypsis.

But most of the times I can control myself.

After all I am acting as a self-appointed Hive and inLeo ambassador.

I have to behave.

I have to use web2 if I want to bring in users to the Hive ecosystem.

And I understand that there's no point in having the best technology, an awesome community and the most decentralized Layer1 in the space, if we don't tell people about it.

Either we spread the word, or we will die

Again, get off that High Horse.

There's no point in saying Oh I don't user X, that shit is centralized, I only X Hive platform with a shrinking user base, because eventually, if we don't spread that X Hive platform - whatever's your go-to Hive platform - we will never get really adopted.

Virtue signaling between each other inside the Hive ecosystem about how bad other protocols are, how centralized other Blockchains are, how scammy some tokenomics look, is just stupid.

Get out there.

Be vocal in web2 about Hive.

Be articulated when you explain web2 NFT users how much better Hive is.

Be eloquent when you write a long form post on Medium on how Digital Identities are important and how Hive solves this.

But man, get out there

We hate web2.

But...

We need web2.

Let's stop writing our own Epitaph and start leveraging web2 to grow web3.

Or we risk looking like this, frens.

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Either we spread the word, or we will die
Again, get off that High Horse.

Some things worth considering:

The web2 algorithms are not friendly to anything related to crypto.

The web2 algorithms are not friendly to any other service that they might lose users to.

You cannot pitch a crypto related idea on web2 without knocking over an ill-informed crypto huckster and three people that have been scammed... or just lost their assets through their own negligence.

Thus a better approach might be spreading Hive in the real world via non-crypto related events like music and art festivals... as well as at crypto-centric events.

During the 'OS Wars' of the nineties Linux was in much the same position as Hive is now... and we see how that turned out. All that it took was the die hard users to not give up as the technology kept advancing. It did so not by people shouting about it from the proverbial mountaintop... but by the technology becoming so good at what it does that it eventually became pervasive.

What we're trying to focus is to grow personal brands and not shill Hive. Build a follower base and trust and not try to bring users directly - it is the long game, but as you mentioned there are many factors against us, so this moderate approach might work.

Then, bring this audience to Hive in an organic way.

So far it's working. We're doing spaces, being guests in influencer's spaces and just getting involved with the community, so that when the eventual invitation comes, it comes from a friendly, connected face, and not just someone that looks like the next shill in town.

Thank you for your feedback Jacob, always good to get your valuable takes. I hope you are doing good man!

Yep, I like the focus as far as building personal brands go... and the lack of shilling. The overall approach seems very solid. It is also refreshing to say the least!

You are welcome and right back at ya!

This post should be read by all Hive! The 10,000 active users. And I laughed a lot at the conspiracy schizophrenic, but it's the only part I laughed at. I read everything else very seriously, and worried... And yes, web2 is still necessary, but there are more platforms to promote, not just X, right? I think so, we have to get out of the shell of Hive and go to other web2 networks so that they listen to us. This is a very good post and I think most Hive users are still not aware of what you explain here.

So true!

You're right. Too often Web3 people digging in the Rabbit Hole finding a magic place, forget the importance of brining new users down here!
Let's do it!

This is an insightful post you have shared about promoting hive and the advantages of Web2 to improve web 3

Thank you for this! Came by at just the right time for me in my journey. Have been thinking about building on and insulating into Web3, but I guess I have to use Web 2 and have others come join me.

We must interact with our contacts or acquaintances of Web 2 and incorporate them into the Hive ecosystem to truly experience the importance and benefits of Web 3.

Being active in Web2 is key to reach our target audience.

Hive has had a large presence on Twitter for several years now. How many users has this brought into Hive? Do you have data to support the claim that our activity on web2 drives users to Hive?

I don't think we've had real web2 presence man. Yes we have official accounts and random users sharing posts but, has someone really been growing a brand in web2?

We don't have in-hive influencers with 100k followers, we don't have official accounts with hundreds of replies, sharing videos and consistently following a social media strategy.

Yes, there's been bursts, but we don't really have a web2 presence that matters or that people outside of hive care about.

@tipu curate

The thing is though, could we even handle a couple of thousand users coming per day? Do we have enough account creation tokens for free onboarding? But overall I agree

LOL
I love it.
We are sometimes our own worse enemy, and we eat our children.
I agree with you 100%.
Building a bridge to Web2 is the only rational way forward.

It is also very important to keep in mind to promote on Web2 the necessary knowledge to be able to work on Hive and Web3 in general. Web2 users find it difficult when they start in Hive. In Web 2 everything is simpler and it is necessary to take this into account. Therefore it is very necessary to create mechanisms in Web 2 for people to learn before starting in the Web 3 world.

o.o ive seen u do this eric. jk jk :P

Hahahaha I hate web2! But sadly we need it fren :(

need it for now until everyone gets onboard web3

I understand better the point of being active in Web2 since reading this. I have been on the side you criticize, till today.

I'm glad I was able to convince you man, I am the biggest hater of web2, but sadly we need to leverage it to onboard more users, not make a blind eye and assume we will magically get adopted without putting Hive out to the masses.

There are many other initiatives that are working, we're just trying to add to these efforts :D

Yeah, I agree with your sayings in this post, Hive has been here for a long and still the number of active users is very low as compared to some projects just like Stararena and the likes you mentioned in your previous post. Promoting or marketing Hive to the web2 platforms is a great idea but I have come to realize that it is only X we are more focused on, why not try the other web2 platforms as well too, instead of giving all attention to X My suggestion though.

The scenario is compare to a man who climbs up a roof top and then throw down the ladder. We need web3.

Almost every single time a Hive users engages with someone in web2, the Hivers are full of themselves, the interactions from the Hiver are condescending, and the end result is that we end up alienating people instead of bringing them to our ecosystem.

The truth is this. It really beats me when hive users want to be stars on web2 platforms and not build a community.

It’s painful seeing knock off applications steal ideas from hive and win out of them.

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Great points well made. The question then is, so what is Hive's "brand"? What does that look like? How do you make a brand for 10,000 individual strangers sprinkled across the Earth who just use the same decentralised internet software?

Most of us are just trying to get an audience and content ideas off the ground and I think this is the optimal way. We need more use of the DHF as an incubator of high-quality content that people would actually want to watch, maybe?

The question then is, so what is Hive's "brand"? What does that look like? How do you make a brand for 10,000 individual strangers sprinkled across the Earth who just use the same decentralised internet software?

I like to picture Hive as a sort of 'temporary autonomous zone' that has a permanent record. The beauty of Hive is that it can be anything to anybody... which makes it having a single 'brand' not only a tricky concept... but also hard to implement.

Having thought long and hard about it over the years the closest real world comparison is what Burningman did with festivals by shifting the mindset from spectator to participant. While I am not a huge fan of BM itself... the system works.

My point exactly! BM... never been. I hear it's a commercialised husk of it's former self nowadays, but okay, wasn't aware that was a deliberate thing the organisers did. Sounds interesting! Could be a way forward... I suppose the main 'selling point' of Hive is the power the user (can) have. Individualism. Freedom. All that.

Yeah the regional events are way better.