The pie that shrinks
One would imagine that most Hiveans who've been around for years get it by now, but honestly, it seems like plenty still don’t. A lot of us can spot the most obvious bad behaviors, but we’re also quick to ignore the ones that feel... convenient.
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This is usually a topic that @acidyo brings up. He catches a lot of flack for it, but the truth is, he’s got a point, and it can’t be brushed off.
We still have, unfortunately, a serious circle-voting problem. I understand supporting friends, I do it too. But that’s not exactly what I’m talking about. I know bringing this up might put a target on my back, but staying quiet feels like I’d be doing myself a disservice. And hey, this is my blog after all.
I believe most token holders want Hive to succeed. Even those who vent about the platform’s flaws and persistent issues, deep down, they’re still rooting for it. They’ve put years into this place, and they stand to gain the most if Hive’s value skyrockets. They know this. And yet... most do very little to actually help the valuation rise.
You see, hoarding tokens doesn't do much to restore Hive to its former glory. Sure, it feels nice when your balance grows, but all we’re doing is slicing up a smaller and smaller pie, then grabbing more of it for ourselves. What we should be doing is finding ways to make the pie bigger. And I don’t see enough people having that conversation.
A few months ago, a friend told me he loves travel blogs, but rarely curates them. His stance felt a little extreme at the time, but now I get it. The longer I’m here, the more I understand the frustration. It feels like we can’t agree on a long-term vision, and I don’t understand why.
We have these “old accounts” that post every day, collect their autovotes, rarely reply to comments, and only vote for their little circle of “friends.” Look under the hood and it’s obvious—it’s just vote exchange. Self-voting with extra steps. That reality got uglier when one of these accounts was revealed to be using AI to churn out trending posts. Is that insult to injury? Sure feels like it.
But where am I going with this Monday morning rant, you ask?
This is a call to action. You're entitled to use your stake however you want, but I’m inviting you to be someone who thinks about growing the pie, not just grabbing a bigger slice.
If you’ve been here long enough, it’s fair to ask yourself:
What am I doing for Hive?
How am I helping retention?
Am I spreading the word?
Am I a valuable member of this community?
What can I contribute?
I’m asking these questions because the deeper I dig into accounts here, the more I find things that don’t sit right. Things I can’t look at without making a face.
I see people with decent followings on Web2, who’ve powered down nearly everything they ever earned here, and they don’t even link back to the platform that gave them so much.
What is that? A lack of gratitude? Narcissism? Just short-sighted selfishness? The more I think about it, the worse it feels.
Now, some might think I’m only this bothered because I’ve bitten off more than I can chew. I’ll grant you, fatigue is part of this. But it doesn’t make my observations any less real.
So to close, and maybe this will be the last time I let bitterness slip from my fingers, let me just say:
If you're not doing your part, I hope you're not also complaining when the price drops.
MenO
I really think we need to come up with ways to reward manual curation more. It stings knowing some stakeholders earn the same amount as you when you spend 2h+ every day looking for posts and authors to upvote and as you say, may sting even more knowing some are earning even more than you because they just trade votes rather than get votes from others manually curating you now and then.
Commentrewarder and reward.app "may" be a way to give curators more rewards, the former especially because if you're curating posts manually you may also add something with a comment and get a little extra if the author votes you up. It's not much and it's coming from authors, but I do wonder what more can be done to encourage people to go out and use their daily 10 votes or at least delegate them to manual stakeholders so they can get more out of them and do more with them than just scratch each others back on a race to the bottom.
There's still so many posts for instance in the @lovesniped/feed which are directly onboarded users who receive close to 0 rewards and engagement while we look at what shittoken to delegate to to get higher author rewards ourselves cause the rewards "are so low in $" rather than thinking in HP.
Dunno, maybe a DHF proposal to throw extra APR towards those going the extra mile to help this place grow compared to those just riding on their backs and blaming them for not doing enough.
DHF is highly political. Sincerely, I would not even know where to begin there. But I hear you... its is infuriating to see so many people being anti their own best interest. Yet, they always complain about Hive's price action.
Nearly everyday I look for new Photography posts.
If I like it they get upvoted. Stimulating the small accounts.
Not a lot of work and you make a lot of people happy and hope they continue the Hive journey.
that is a simple win, we can all do!
Haha, well, never better said my friend. From long time ago I've seen the desperation for grabbing a bigger slice of the pie instead of growing the pie. Hence, many of my "seriously humorous" and often cryptic posts forcing people to «click» more and forcing them to think more deeply about these issues.
But definitely the mission of raising awareness in the people about certain important things, is too often a rather useless, disregarded and thankless task. Isn't it?
Anyway... we'll keep trying!
https://x.com/lee19389/status/1937291619406860563
#hive #posh
Honestly, the circle-voting is the main reason I don't post to Hive more... the accounts collecting the autovotes basically just repeat the same series of points slightly reworded, often several times a day and often full of misinformation and disinformation. The effort put into these posts is minimal while people putting in a lot more effort (but weren't around to start at the right time when these autovotes were being set) only receive a fraction of the rewards, until they get fed up and leave.
These posts might get minimal comments, or lots of comments reiterating the mis/disinformation in order to get votes themselves which turns Hive into a whole network of terrible information. The blockchain is only really working for a select few but the manual rewards happen often enough to get others the hope of progression.
I dont have any good answer yo what we should do to "Make Hive Great Again", but its kinda obvious that something needs to be done.
Probably need a culture change of some sort.
Respect for calling out what's uncomfortable. It’s easy to complain when prices drop, but much harder to ask ourselves the tough questions. This post does that and more.