As I write these words, Hive has a market cap of about $83M placing it #50 on the list of cryptocurrencies. I realize that this is not an exact science, especially since I feel that $HIVE is worth a lot more especially in comparison to other blockchains that are all hype with very little development.
That aside, the market is what it is so we will go with that valuation.
Yesterday, some interesting news came out about Reddit. The "front page of the Internet" is raising money. This will be the Series D round of funding and is led by Chinese giant Tencent. All told, there is going to be between $150M to $300M pumped into this company.
That puts the valuation of Reddit around $3B.
https://techcrunch.com/2019/02/05/raiseit/
Wouldn't we all like to see Hive have a valuation like that?
Why does Reddit have such a value? In my opinion, the answer is simple. Reddit is a RESOURCE. The content on there is something that people like. I personally go there each day to read the headlines in a couple different categories I follow. I do not post nor comment on there but I am a user of that site daily.
According to that article, I am not alone since there are an estimated 330M people a month on there.
That is some traffic. Would anyone on here like to see those numbers for HiveSteem?
They why do we not learn from the success of others? Why are we trying to be a small fish instead of going after the really big one? We opt for the little blogging pond while overlooking the one that houses the Internet.
Did you realize that?
Look at the picture above from the article. Notice the upvotes on it. What do you think would happen on here if this same person posted that here? Obviously a couple thousand people found it helpful.
Here is another example. Tell me honestly if you think this is going to foster growth among new people..
I will state I have no idea who this person is and never crossed paths with him. I use him to illustrate the fact we are not learning from what is valuable.
Check this guy out. Scroll down to about a week ago. Look at what he was posting and where it was being done.
He seems like a young guy and is a photographer which is stated in his profile. He is into posting pics of himself and his friends. This is not uncommon for the young people today.
I did a bit of digging and this guy is a dedicated person on Hive. He had a couple posts that caught my attention.
https://steemit.com/deletfacebook/@moniristi/delete-facebook-and-join-steemit
Wow. What a guy. He not only is posting for people to quit Facebook but he is also urging the digibyte community to join Hive.
But not so fast. There is this tidbit.
Do you see that? He "spams" Dlike with personal photos. Our wonderful Hivian is a spammer. Or is he?
Here is the problem. @dlike is an application for people to share photos. That is what is was designed for. Dlike is an application that is meant to blend Reddit and Pinterest (a company going public at an estimated $12B).
Obviously, this did not sit well with @hivewatchers since the pic is from their Discord group. But wait it gets even better.
Wow. Isn't this wonderful?
A guy posts pictures that he took on an application on this blockchain and now he is permanently on Hivewatchers blacklist which other applications could use.
Why? Because he uses the application too much? Do we not want people using the applications on here? Or is it we do, but only in moderation?
Perhaps all those people who have been questioning retention rate ought to look at this. It might have a part to do with it.
What is also interesting is this guy is now posting his pictures on Busy, forgoing Dlike because he thought that was the reason he was flagged.
So now we have this Logic of Hivewatchers having an impact on which applications are used. Is this what this blockchain stands for? For those who delegated to Hivewatchers, do you believe this valid?
That is not to say that Hivewatchers does not do some good stuff. However, when people are being harassed for posting their own stuff on the blockchain, then something is really wrong. It shows the smallness of thinking that exists.
Many will point to the fact that Reddit has communities and that is a viable point. Hopefully @shredz7 has the integration with @steempeak done soon so we will see what it looks like on this blockchain. However, that is just putting a bandaid on a much bigger hole.
People often talk about marketing on here. If you want to be one of the biggest, you do not fish in a small pond. It is really that simple.
Reddit is a resource site with some commentary on it. There is almost no blogging, more like some questions posted for discussion. It is a very simple model and worth billions.
https://www.dreamgrow.com/top-15-most-popular-social-networking-sites/
Look at the list. Those are the most active social media sites (and also the most valuable ones). Do you notice something common for most of them? They appeal to the masses. Why? They are simply ways for people easily to share stuff that interests them. Most are not going to write a 500 or 1000 word post. Instead, they will put up 5 pictures of their cat.
That is where the market is. Everyone is looking for the killer application that is going to moon blockchain. While that might come down the road, why not focus upon what is already out there? The lessons are clear. For now, this is what the masses are into.
This is a bit dated but it does show the point.
https://blogging.org/blog/state-of-the-blogging-world-2016/
Even if those numbers are off, triple them for argument sake, they do not make the top 10 while being far behind Pinterest and Reddit, two of the easiest concepts to copy.
Value comes, in part, from the numbers of users. Traffic is a vital component to mooning in this world. That traffic does not come by ignoring what 90% of the masses want.
Reddit figured this out and is being richly rewarded for it.
If you found this article informative, please give an upvote and rehive.
