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.
I like that idea, but as I recently noticed - it's hard for newbies to find good content. To dig deep into it. And when we find something, we still have no idea if it's authentic or LLM written. So much goes under the radar concerning that.
Also, some of the "famous" writers who have those auto-votes deserve them. I read a few Orcas and whales and curate them. Not that they need my tiny vote, but their content is great.
I remember I had an auto-vote on me until I reached 2,5k HIVE. That was a huge motivation for me in the beginning, when I was writing mainly to finance SPL. I'm not sure if it was merit-based or just something general, but it was great to see that the work I put in was rewarded at least my someone, even though I chose the wrong time, the wrong topic or the wrong community - that happened a lot more until azircon put me under his wing. Under his whip, to be closer to the truth.
I think new Hivers need more guidance, as I wrote in the comment to your post about this topic. "How to spot AI written content" comes to mind. Tutoring programs. Something like that.
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.
Trying to figure out how to say this in a comment length way... there are some things that are missing, and some things we have lost along the way.
Short version — compared to 7-8 years ago — it feels like we have traded in the gamification of social media for the automation of social media.
I should kick in here that this is not entirely a "Hive problem;" it's also a broader problem... dank memes are preferred over actually reading something that might stimulate your brain.
That aside... I really miss the times of Asher's "Curation and Engagement Leagues" which was all about encouraging and stimulating manual interaction. Let's face it, a lot of people like seeing their name on a leaderboard, often just for the bragging rights, let alone for rewards.
Whatever happened to "Newbie Re(blog) Day?" And there was a group folks around 2018-19 who ran weekly contests/challenges for people who had less than 100HP (or 500HP).
I still sometimes sit and browse the "new posts" feed... which is a sad shadow of its former self... you just don't have 15-20 posts a minute to look at, any more...
Essentially — as you and @acidyo and others keep pointing out — we need to remember that "social" is about "the Internet of PEOPLE," not about AI, or automation, or bots.
Yes, I use autovoting, too... as a backstop when my voting power drops below 95% because I am busy and I don't like my stake sitting idle. But what makes things interesting is the human connection...
Better stop now...
I read acidyo's post before I found this one. The questions you ask, I think I answered most of them in my slightly extensive comment on their post.
https://peakd.com/hive-197333/@beelzael/re-acidyo-syhaoo
What about dedicated burn posts? Writing the same quality content as usual, but burning the rewards. Something like every 10th post. Voluntarily, sure enough, and not incentives by rewards afterwards.
That is one of the things that I see a lot, and I read a lot - posts for the sake of posting something. Participation in challenges instead of creating original, new content. Which can be fun, I do that, too, with that one challenge that incentives thought.
HIVE is complicated. I'm learning that every day, trying to explain it to other people. I onboarded one person, and realized how much I didn't know because that person kept running into roadblocks. At the same time, I try to select the people that I want on board. Not just everyone. Sure, that would make my coins worth more, but the value of this platform is not HIVE nor HBD (yet), but the content. The autonomy. The liberty.
I do appreciate the dopamine-rush when I get a whale-vote. But it's not what I'm here for, and I want the people I bring on board to see that value. A social media that, like that, does not exist anymore.
I do tell everyone I onboard, Hive is social media, but dial back the toxic 90% hahahah
That's the thing... It is a social media, but with an economic component. That makes it even more prone to exploitation and abuse. I'll think about his a little.