Since we're starting a completely new adventure here, I thought it might be fun (and appropriate) to create a new #introduceyourself post for the occasion.
So here comes an assorted ramble!
Towards New Horizons!
Hello, My Name is Peter...
... although most of you know me best by my the moniker "DenmarkGuy," which I have been using online for 25 years and counting.
It was actually my very first text-based email address... CompuServe's sequence of numbers for mail pretty much lacked character. So, when I made my first AOL account, I became denmarkguy@aol.com.
No, I don't have that email address anymore, but the name has stuck.
Yes, I am Danish by birth, although I have lived in many locales around Europe and beyond. These days, I call the small seaside city of Port Townsend in Western Washington state, USA my home.
Fun fact: Not very far from where "Patient Zero" with COVID-19 in the USA was identified. Yes, we're pretty much under lockdown, now...
I'm married to Mrs. Denmarkguy (aka @whitelightxpress); we have three adult kids, a black cat (aka @curatorcat), a dog, some fish and a house full of stuff we're in the process of selling, as part of downsizing.
I'm a Patchwork Economics Entrepreneur
That's a fancy way of saying that I'll go to great lengths and work extremely hard in service of avoiding having to take a "real" job in the "real" world.
I'm a writer, a professional editor (books mostly), artist, eBay seller of (1) antiques and collectibles, (2) jewelry supplies, (3) old postage stamps and letters/manuscripts. In between, I also co-manage a non-profit organization with my wife.
Does it "work?"
Not particularly well, but well enough that I have managed to avoid having to take a "regular" job for a couple of decades.
As we age, we've grown increasingly aware that "stuff" and money holds less value than the relationships and connections we form.
On Decentralization...
So many of us have this ideal we hold onto called "decentralization."
Perhaps one of its greatest challenges — as recent events have borne out — is that a great many human beings have a natural tendency to "centralize."
And we've been sold some pretty reasonable and real arguments about that: Things like "synergy" through numbers, and "economies of scale" are very real things.
Sometimes we might tend to become a little myopic, and just view these challenges through the lens of our community, or blockchain technology.
But consider this: ecommerce giant eBay started off as a largely decentralized peer-to-peer sales venue for individual collectors and hobbyists... the whole thing was very exciting, when I made my account there in 1996. But — over time — the dominant players on eBay are giant corporations. For God's sake, WAL-MART sells on eBay now! And there are a bunch of rules in place that totally accommodate giant corporate sellers, and all but ignore those individual hobbyists who gave the company its start.
One of the challenges we humans have is that in every crowd, there will be a few who want to "rule the world" and they will do whatever they can, to get their way.
That was THEN...
I Came to Steemit...
... in January 2017, pretty much by accident. And now that I am here in the HIVE, I feel happy to leave the whole "is it Steem or is it Steemit" debate behind.
I'll say this: when I joined it was called "Steemit." Period. Case closed.
I started posting on Steemit for no reason other than it reminded me of old school "Social Blogging," which was (and remains) my favorite interpretation of the social web, before MySpace and Facebook pretty much killed the genre.
To be honest, I never thought Steemit/Steem would last, and I even wrote as much in my initial Introduce Yourself post.
The shitshow we've just seen is actually fairly typical of "get paid for web content" sites, going back over 20 years. Things can be quite promising for a while, but inevitably someone comes along — an individual, or an entire group — who believe they get to control the narrative, and then things start falling apart.
Hopes For Hive
I've been asking myself what I really hope this new venue will offer. Or prove itself to be. Trouble is, I tend to be more idealistic than human nature tends to realistically allow.
I suppose one of my primary hopes is that we truly can pull off creating a successful and thriving decentralized social community... one that might actually make a large enough mark on the map that it becomes a model for new way of structuring human life and communities.
It's also my hope that we continue to build community and relationships in such a way that we have a more or less permanent home for all our myriad types of web content. I place that doesn't go away the next time the wind turns.
And who knows, maybe we'll even earn a few cents here and there for our efforts! In the very long term, I just hope it might become a nice savings account.
In the meantime, let's not forget to enjoy ourselves! HIVE ON!
Comments, feedback and other interaction is invited and welcomed! Because — after all — SOCIAL content is about interacting, right? Leave a comment-- share your experiences-- be part of the conversation!
(As usual, all text and images by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for this platform.)
Created at 20200320 23:20 PDT
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