When Hive forked from Steem a few years ago we pretty much stamped a new name on Steem and away we went into the sunset patting each other on the back thinking we did a great job. Since that faithful day Hive has become more stable as a cryptocurrency and even when Bitcoin fell Hive held its ground pretty well. Many things have been developed and the Community has grown somewhat but not as much as we expected. We are still hovering between 15cent and 22 cent with a couple of minor blips along the way. Last Friday being one of them but generally we hold our own on the exchanges but I can't help feeling Hive should be more expensive considering all that is developed on chain. We are feeless also which is a major draw but we don't seem to advertise this fact.
Short form content has become the norm now as the young are used to video Reels and TikTok's where they scroll on after 5 seconds. Reading has now been replaced by watching. Hive has many challenges ahead and we have made mistakes. Some things are still big talking points such as downvoting, autovotes and the DHF.
There was some ideas floating around about Hive users not seeing the vote reward of a post or only the authors see their own. Also there was ideas floating around about taking away the post rewarding altogether. I see some downvotes on posts that exceed $60 and they are the token Ladybird posts and the reason is that they think that post is overrewarded. Now there is different pros and cons to each argument so I am not going to side with any today but I would like to ask the Community if they were to set up Hive in the morning. How would they do it differently?
What would they do regarding downvotes and upvotes? Could the upvotes be tied to the amount the post has been engaged with. If engagement is high then you are rewarded accordingly. If someone is going through the motions with little engagement then that post may not be awarded so handsomely.
Would there be any more benefits of powering up? Our Community culture motivates us to power up for a % ROI but is this the best use of our Hive token? Is powering the token up into HBD more profitable? Granted you have a higher standing in the Community and people talk to you more at Hivefest but what more can you give people who power up. A colleage of mine suggested that Hive being zero fees is actually a disadvantage because most token stakers of crypto tokens get rewarded by the % of transaction fees that they generate. With Hive this is not an option so the staker of Hive gets less.
What about curation? Would you change this? Would you get rid of autovotes. There has been some element of getting rid of this on Hive but we are all guilty here of this. I have seen even the most anto autovote users on Hive are getting autovotes so it's a tough one to manage.
The DHF is a massive issue and there is more money being drained from the Bank of Hive than any Steem ninja mine which was such a contentious issue with Steem at the time. Now we see a rally car flying through the air and think wow we have a rally car but nobody looks at the cost. So what would you do differently here? The largest stakers pretty much have a carte blanche on this DHF fund and there looks like to be no controls in place to prevent 1 whale from giving a quarter of a million in HBD to someone if they have enough Hive Power to vote for a project. Some blockchains use their fund as a rainy day fund and do not touch it until the proverbial shit hits the fan but it looks like Hive is hell bent on getting through theirs. So if I was the largest stakeholder in Hive and Little Jimmy comes to me on the streets of Kuala Lumpar and says to be:
*Oh Mr @blanchy my dear, my dream in life is the climb Mount Everest. But I only have the shirt on my back and the shoes on my feet, can you help me? *
So after I give Little Jimmy a hot dinner and I sort of like him. Good attitude. Calls me master. I tell Jimmy to put in a proposal to Valueplan and make sure he has a Hive flag of some kind so he can plant it on the summit.
Little Jimmy has failed in his first attempt because he has never been up a mountain in his life but there is something I like about Little Jimmy. After paying for his medical fees on his frostbitten arm. I fund him again to scale Everest and after his 3rd attempt and 3 amputated toes later we have a Hive flag on Everest. The Hive Community is ecstatic and can only see the positives but Jimmy is after costing us 400k to climb Everest. Now Jimmy wants to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and because he climbed Everest I can't really say no so I fund him on this as well and it just goes on and on. Jimmy relies on the income now and Hive is down 600k in HBD funding a guy with 13 HP in his account that didn't even post about scaling Everest. In the end it all turns sour and Jimmy writes a long post outing me for not supplying him with the adequate safety equipment and it all ends in tears.
So in summary how would you handle onboarding or marketing differently?
Downvoting looks to be an issue but personally I don't have a problem with it but would you change anything here?
Is there anything in the mechanics of Hive and HBD you would change? Inflationary controls or deflationary controls? Personally it all goes over my head a bit. Would you change the supply of Hive? Would you try to promote HBD on more exchanges?
How would you handle the Dapps? It looks like we aren't great at it. They are like the England football team. They have not won the world cup since 1966 and the country is wanting and wishing for the current team to bring it home but yet when they get to the tournaments , the press go after them like they are the enemy. Some blockchains have a fund to attract blockchain games / projects to their blockchain? Have we been burnt by Dapps just taking the money and leaving before? What are the controls measures or contracts in place to combat a run on the Hive Bank? Is there certain deliverables that are needed from these Dapps to get funded? Should be be more professional when dealing with projects and their founders? What is the relationship like with two of our major Dapps in Splinterlands and Leo? Is it good or could it be better?
Would you structure the witness system differently? Or maybe it is something that I have not even spoken about above? What have you seen on other blockchains that you liked?
Answers on a stamped addressed decentralised envelope or just in the comments below.