# written by a out-of-touch person

## who is clueless about hive

<p>I miss you. 🥺 </p>
<p>I like Hive, but to be honest, it's <em>Bloody hard work.</em> It's OK if you're a school kid or out of work; you're able to devote the levels of commitment it requires to not only build but keep those votes rolling in. </p>
<h3>The Promised Land</h3>
<p>Hive, certainly to me, was billed as a complete change from the supposed bad old days of STEEM. Witnesses would be replaced in certain instances, no more "Get rich quick schemes", and many of the support groups who pooled their votes done away with. Little did I know that there would be four or five groups who, in some cases, are little more than <em>Freikorp</em> roaming the Blockchain actively looking for people to rough up for, in some cases, the most pathetic excuses I've ever seen.</p>
<p><b>Jester:</b> "What was your crime?"<br><b>Spudbecker:</b> "Whistling on a Tuesday."<br><b>Jester:</b> "You bastard!"</p>
<p>Coming from the FOSS community as I do <em>Freedom</em> means a lot to me, so the promise of a free, open-source platform that is decentralised and no censorship was pretty attractive to me. Little did I know how much lip service is paid to those values. For example, I've had the debate about censorship and apparently, hiding posts is not censorship because you can find them if you look or use A-another Dapp. Sounds like censorship to me. Isn't that what happens in wartime? They block foreign radio and news outlets?</p>
<h3>Nobodody tells you what the rules are when you sign up!</h3>
<p>I'm not sure Hive is all that welcoming tbh. True, everyone encourages folk to join, but it's kinda "Lambs to the slaughter" and "Chucked in at the deep end" all rolled into one. There's no list of Do's, and Dont's nobody tells you that EVERY image you use that's not yours requires a source link or that voting for your mother, brother, aunt, and cousins will be classed as "Vote Farming", so best not to encourage your family to join and then just to add insult to injury lodging an appeal is like wading through a French Foreign Legion assault course. I've told HiveWatchers a couple of times that their site <a href="https://hivewatchers.com/">https://hivewatchers.com/</a> is not fit for purpose. Its only function appears to be for reporting people! No advice on what is the accepted format of a post. There is no list of transgressions you could fall foul of and certainly, most importantly, the steps one needs to appeal their case. Scarily, other groups don't even have anywhere that you can go to ask, "Why?"</p>
<h3>What are you?</h3>
<p>When I was on STEEM, it was a blogging platform. Sure some folk posted the odd Youtube video, and yes, there was a tonne of memes. Still, ultimately it was a blogging platform where you were rewarded for <b>Good Content</b> Hive apparently is a <b>Media Platform</b> whereby people can create a video on 3speak (Where they get rewards) and post that to Hive with little or no text and get rewarded again! (What happened to the double-dipping I see people get flailed for on blog posts?) Good Content? Who decides what's Good Content because it's not the amount of votes/rewards it gets, especially when there's a <em>Leveling of rewards</em> activity going on.</p>
<p><b>Rant Over</b></p>
<p>Come back and post again. I miss some of the old gang.</p>

You are 100% right. Most people do not remember all the work you did with promo-mentors and the lack of support you got for that. You had amazing people/teachers. I loved the Video production classes with Kay. Hive is a plutocracy that is not fully capitalizing on the potential it has with the disorganization and lack of incentives for users to power up. In fact that is the battle cry... Use Hive and cash it out. 

More needs to be done to further support blockchain gaming, creating liquidity pools for Hive staking, cross chain assest management(chainlink) as well as walling off the first layer of Hive to allow for organic community development on the second layer and not 1st layer political rewards pool handouts that just devalue our currency.

Hi to you,

very interesting to follow the comments underneath your article. I would like to give you my personal view on this. 

The question is in principle, how are the witnesses paid and by whom? If there is no hierarchy, i.e. no official company that offers employees or, for that matter, freelancers a contract that both parties can rely on, the payment model is uncertain. 

The witness must then simultaneously look for other ways of earning money in addition to contributing his technical skills in order to be compensated for his efforts. At least that is how I understand the whole thing here. 

If no one enters into a binding contract with anyone, no one has any reliability to expect from anyone. The individual is thrown back on himself, which he naturally tries to compensate for. The witnesses who have found a way to balance their costs and energy input do so through, for example, their blog and its payouts and through the founding of groups, so-called communities. Someone who has to look after himself, without the usual hierarchy and given security of a structure according to the usual contractual conditions, must behave selfishly if he sees no other way. 

The first witnesses have ensured that their established interest groups always remain stable and have created the illusion that it is the community that decides on the value of a publication. Of course, this is not quite true, because neither ocd nor curie or curangel, for example, have a specification of what exactly is voted up. The matter is quite vague, because it can be anything. The lack of specialisation in, for example, literature or art, photography or craft, etc. is precisely what the big drivers lack, but they nevertheless appropriate all categories for themselves without standing for a specific category. 

Therefore, the other-interest groups are competition as long as they grow and receive support from competing single whales. How undesirable it is for something new to emerge, for diverse categories and interest groups to form independently and with financial success, can be seen in the fact that, for example, newcomers to the platform are immediately fished out by those whose pool is already very large. As a newcomer, you are initially flattered by such a surprisingly large upvote total. Then, after the introduction post, the cent amounts that flow in through blogging lead the user to search for the fattest sinecures, and he naturally finds them in the largest interest groups and curation trails. 

It's all quite normal and basically no one is to blame for the way things are. It is probably a reflection of our times that a public platform based on electricity and computer technology does not know or need corporate governance. All it needs is participation and transactions. In the process, content is basically overcome, in other words: it matters little *what* one posts, only *that* one posts. A certain superficial standard can be attached to this, such as the length, illustration and popularity of a topic. Just like a respected voting behaviour and so-called engagement among users. 

That it won't grow here is uncertain, but I share the scepticism about it, insofar as nothing changes in the person structure of the top witnesses and the efforts to keep their own communities at the top end. I don't even know to what extent these people even know or coordinate with each other and whether they are able to really step out of their own perspective or whether they are too dependent on it. I guess it depends on whether running a Blokchain is their only source of income and they pay their rent and living expenses from it in the real world. 

I think it is true what some people interested in the future have said: the media person stands alone in the media world, he has no binding contract with anyone, he is exposed to the arbitrariness of the algorythms and the automatic processes without really finding a contact person who feels responsible. It all gives the appearance of a sense of responsibility, but it merely reflects the problem the individual already has vis-à-vis the corporations: There is no one to grab hold of to formulate any claims when it comes to cross-border, non-local, non-physically real entities. The existing legislation that protects employees at work, for example, does not exist here. It is basically a lawless space, a new Wild West, but quite different from the one we know from the touchable reality. 

Greetings.

I understand these complaints, so what do you believe is the next best option. I have heard about blurt but it seemed annoying to join

Very well put. Reading some of the comments on here further convinces me that pulling all my investments out of Hive over the past few months was a good idea.

Inflation isnt a problem if I earn 10+%. Actually inflation and deflation arent problems as the economic gurus always predict.

The real thing is the difference between income increase and inflation. Some defis are big because of bizarre inflation % and thus super high reward %.

The rest are fair points 

Posted Using [LeoFinance <sup>Beta</sup>](https://leofinance.io/@gogreenbuddy/re-futurethinker-4fmskw)

I don't see how joining Ethereum is a solution.

I have brought three active users (two very long-term) to the chain since I started. Not a huge success, but progress. I seek out bloggers to support with my votes. I downvote copy/paste spam when I find it. All of these kinds of activities are beneficialto he community as a whole and to me individually.

The DPoS model does give disproportionate power to whales. I have been disappointed in some of the actions taken by large stake holders with vendettas, and Curangel has even been a part of this problem. However, none of this is resolved by linking to another chain.

I don't really know where to start. There's a lot to unpack here. There are at least a few technical inaccuracies, ranging from trivial (20 top witnesses, not 21) to glaring (DPoS and low fees being the primary cause of inflation??? no, that's our reward pool; how could you miss this?). I guess I'll start with some questions.

Easiest one first: if you feel that Hive has failed as a blogging platform, why have you just made a blog post on Hive?

And by which metric(s) are you asserting that Hive is failing or has failed? Are you comparing it to other blockchains/tokens, rather than assessing it on its own? What constitutes "failure" to you? Is total and complete domination of market share the only metric of success? Widespread mainstream adoption? Your expectations of Hive in almost every aspect seem to be incongruent with reality and so, of course you assess that it has failed, because you expect it to be things that it isn't.

This isn't something that only opponents of Hive are guilty of, by the way. Something that really annoys me is when people expect Hive to be things it is not. I've clashed with a couple of the "OGs" about this. An example interaction follows:

1. A bidbot operator who got rich through opportunistic rent-seeking (pick one, there are several) starts bitching about how Hive is not working (i.e., not making them richer fast enough).
2. They suggest removing the reward pool for content, completely ignoring the entire purpose of Hive, because "token go up = me rich".
3. They elaborate on how we should "pivot" Hive to leverage the latest craze in crypto, be it scam ICOs, DeFi (you want ponzi? there's your fucking ponzi, lol), NFT, whatever.
4. I point out that there are thousands of shitcoins out there doing exactly what they want, and if they want to be invested in that, they should probably power down and buy into those instead, rather than try to hack together some bargain-bin version built on Hive.
5. They suggest that because their account is large and mine is not as large, that I don't know what I'm talking about. (I _still_ don't understand that guy's logic, but ok).

It's heartwarming that you're here, explaining to a vibrant community (which you abandoned long ago), out of the kindness of your heart, that everything they're building isn't going to follow the same market patterns as blockchains built on pictures of dogs. But I don't think very many of us are expecting it to?

It's not that you're actually _wrong_ about many of the points you're making, it's just that... Hive doesn't really care. It's not as simple of a use case as value storage and movement. It's an intricate social economy where you can literally buy and sell human attention. It's its own little society. At the same time, there are things that Hive isn't and never will be, because of the technology it uses and the way that it is. Some people think HIVE is good money and, were I in the business of deception, I'd have a bridge to sell them. Of course HIVE isn't good money; it's not _supposed_ to be. It's liquid stake in a decentralised autonomous society. Was that not cool enough already? Is your house money? What about your car? Your membership at the country club? 

Why does everyone who writes posts like these expect Hive to be what it isn't?

It's like you've landed your ship on an uncharted island with an indigenous population. You're wildly pointing and gesturing around, trying to communicate to us savages that our society is going nowhere, because you have a washing machine and a microwave at home. Okay? So our population and our GDP isn't the highest in the world. That's kinda obvious, right? Anyway, we're cooking sweetpotatoes in our clay pots. Want some?

Hi! Well, I felt the need to set the record straight, I haven't really curated for about a year at least as I have been focusing more on content creation, and administration for Curangel which is a curation project started and created by @pharesim. 

I also don't share the sentiment on this pending doom sensation you have about Hive. There are plenty of things that have improved since 4 years ago with many exciting projects and games being built that are not even released yet but will be soon. Those very same investors you pointed out are still around because they see a potential and because they are busy building even when it has not been publicly announced and for a good reason. I remember how everyone was waiting for SMTs and how they would come soon and then never did. It is better to have something ready before announcing to the public and then face the scrutiny of not meeting the deadlines or that the moon is not coming because of them. 

 Curation these days is even more decentralized than it used to be, since now stakeholders are incentivized to curate themselves by having the best return that way. Of course, there are some bigger stakeholders who just cast their votes on whatever is on the trending page because they have no time or interest in finding content themselves or they don't feel they would get back the same return by delegating to curation guilds to distribute stake for them.

You're not the first person to address such concerns. 

As an avid observer of human behaviour I have noticed that all crypto is an internal belief system had by a select group which is then projected onto the world. A kind of repeat narcissism of the group - a religion basically. 

The Hive religion - which is exposed in the emotion expressed by some of its devotees in these comments, lol - has been an interesting participatory journey for me. I've a history of cults - it's only natural I'm attracted to them... lol

I've used this vessel to express many things and also develop many things including writing, music, video making, investigative journalism and generally thought provoking content. I've found a community of freethinking people dedicated to a censorship resistant platform.

A censorship resistant platform was the primary basis of my presence here on Hive. I can learn these lessons and develop my abilities on any platform - it doesn't need to be Hive and I can also go in hibernation for a while until something else suitable comes up. 

Does this mean much to investors who have their chips piled up on the Hive side of the fence? Probably not. 

I as a small guy, of whom the only capital I have is my brain, skills, talents and tenacity, am just one person with little stake and therefore little say. I do have a reputation of 69 (please judge me greatly on this, my rep shot up when I put some money in once, then took it out again when I was broke) - lesson 1 from Hive - money buys you a reputation. 

That's just it - that's the issue here - you have 'stake' which is carried over from an abusive economy which gives you influence in the 'free world' aka Hive. 

That world ain't free folks. Hive is not a 'free' platform.

But to be honest, nothing is. There's always a transaction somewhere. And mummy and daddy weren't to be relied on a long time ago... 

I as a content creator and community contributor am a single small piece - but I am also the backbone of what gives the social media platform side of things content which generates interest through attention capital economics then seeping out in the greater world of the now. 

If I stand up and walk away - others may as well. Even if they don't, I've been true to myself and that's what matters to me. I could die tomorrow, would anyone miss me? Maybe not - does it matter in the grand scheme of things? Maybe not. (I did not intend this level of morbidity when initiating the writing of this post, I promise... ).

I make a choice, it may lead to others making their choices and that may lead to a free-fall of Hive - or maybe not. 

It will retain value through Splinterlands however - but that was not the initial aim of what Hive was meant to represent - as far as I am aware. 

Sometimes I like to engage in the circle jerk - I'll post some content like this video here - https://peakd.com/hive-174578/@montycashmusic/qukonfzb

I bought three Go Pros so I can make multi-perspective music videos for an upcoming release - I'm having fun - so what do I do? I post it on my favourite censorship resistant platform of course! 

There's a few problems here though - when you look below the surface level - problems that have not resolved themselves over the years I have been involved. Problems I am almost certain will not resolve themselves due to fundamental flaws in the platform. 

I received 59 votes. Woohoo! Great for me... on others I receive 500 and I get less of a payout..... ok so 59 people have looked at this post and dedicated a short period of their lives to my carefully crafted content? 

No.

Majority of the payout comes from three user accounts - which is great but that seems a bit odd... does that mean those people have looked at the video? Not necessarily...

I've noticed that the 3speak account routinely upvotes videos that get more attention from external links outside of the Hive ecoverse (which is quite a sensible algorithm to have really). I advertised this link a lot externally to all my friends in individual telegram messages - personalized - and got a whopping 30 views (ok being sarcastic)..

(actually can't see how many views now because 3speak seems to be down again... but last time I remember it was about 30 - at least 5 of which are me revisiting the video to check for errors and to admire the wonderful image of myself from many perspectives).

There are also a couple of small voting trails included in the 59 votes as well. This means that one person votes and many votes are attached (you know this but I'm just stating for the sake of making a point). Also, some of those trails are actually auto-votes as I have discovered because I've got a couple of regulars.

You'll also notice that the only user engagement I received was from a user - who does great stuff in the video world in the UK - that I deliberately tagged in the comments. 

Does that mean the only way to get engagement is to tag people incessantly like some kind of nagging musician wanting attention (hang on a minute a relevant alternative metaphor was meant to go there... 🙃) 

I'll let you in on a secret, 

...sometimes 

.......when I'm in a dark room alone 

I like to pretend that 300 random votes I get from Curie are actually different people looking at my work. It's a kind of false panacea I like to put myself through - makes me feel great for a day - possibly likened to the self-pleasuring habit of old - 

then... 

later....

I remind myself of REALITY; take a deep breath and get off the fucking computer! (oh, lord Jesus! It feels good to pretend I don't want you when you punish me with such lies!)

It's true, I'm a shit-stirrer and I've certainly got my fair share of avoiders in this world because of my lack of a generally-general-vanilla-societal-palatable-self-promotional skill-set (thus why me the odd ball ends up on Hive with all the other odd balls, banging around our oddness together, believing in a free world and all that (HULLO!? 😲)).

There are major flaws in the way Hive accumulates attention points. It hasn't changed and it won't change. The system is broken.

Even if I appease the witness masters and post only sanitary content devoid of all conspiracy and slowly build up a community like many have done and dedicated their lives to - engagement is a dead end here - majority of engagements are reward focused and not genuine participation for the sake of... well.. living. 

That's where you the whale has the power to upvote someone's comment in Venezuela and effectively buy them food for the day.... this is where Hive flourishes in making the world more equal..... it's simply removed government and tax restrictions from the countries government and put it in the hands of the witnesses. 

Yes, I've seen great posts with great engagement (over yonder, o'er the hilltop) - I've also seen terrible circle jerk mastabatory excrement masking as 'great writing' by large stake holders which then a loyal bunch of worshippers come and pay their respects with a 'thoughtful comment' to which they receive a crumb off the kings table - I've then seen these posts cause the writer to believe they are indeed AMAZING! and continue to write such trollop and continue to get rewarded for it. It's a degeneracy of the intellect likened to incest - it's why echo chambers are a no go zone for a free thinker and someone truly dedicated to develop any skill. 

There is no difference between the system here and the system in the world. 

The core of it is human behaviour and conditioning. Regardless of the system that is setup, regardless of how fool proof it is - the innate conditioning of the humans using the system will inevitably create the same conditions they exist in, within.

And now we go all meta - to fix the system - to fix Hive even - you have to fix yourself. Really, you have to start with yourself and the way you handle yourself in a group. 

Know thyself. 

ps. also another messianic wannabe, trying to change the world.... one Hive comment at a time... someone will read this comment... someone will be saved... if only just one... then one is enough... (I'm big on parody, it's hard to tell with solid text, honestly some people take me seriously, like sarcasm on the facebewk of old, it's one big fuckup, lol). 

---

It's so, so good to get away from the computer from time to time.... now working at a dairy - pushing cows... well really they push themselves.  haha


![photo_2021-10-28_17-24-22.jpg](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/montycashmusic/EpEFPj3Sj1jcmrRLFpeydmzJEf5waWgH4H9xcN25imVw1haqSdBcEXAZu2FmbXyvpGi.jpg)


Say hi to Pus Pus - he non-consentually jumps on people's shoulders while they're milking a herd of cows... also likes to drink milk, kill mice and meow into empty fields. 

This probably should have been its own post - considering how long it is and it may receive downvotes for being so brandishly vulgar toward the Hive religion - but little fucks are given. Please censor me with your downvote oh dragon who sits on his gold. 

I will enjoy the validation.

In the meantime, I will continue posting fun musical posts for myself to view on the possibly working hive infrastructure in the near future. 

Thanks Hive for being so supremely human.

>  but the direction I think hive could go is to join ethereum as a layer 2 and figure out how to become a good decentralized blog. Because as an application layer, hive is falling far behind. By doing this, Hive benefits from the decentralization and security of Ethereum while retaining its transaction speed.

Vitalik loves our Hive community and we should seek to advise from ETH community and figure out a solution. 

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