Dan Larimer's original concept of Steemit, later to become Hive, a blockchain that could house a rewards-based social media platform, is arguably one of the standout revolutionary concepts in the Web3 universe.
Rewarding content creators on social media was not a new idea of course, Youtube had been facilitating content creator ad sharing for some years before Larimer even dreamed of Steemit. His innovation was delivered in two ways, first the manner in which the rewards were created and distributed by the Steem blockchain. Next was the fact that for the first time, the audience got to share some of the rewards simply by being part of the voting crowd.
However Hive was always meant to be an experiment, a kind of suck-it-and-see then adjust accordingly. Which happened to some extent, originally it was only possible to give a one hundred percent upvote, downvotes were not possible at all and user comments could not be voted on. All of those things, along with a whole host of others changed under consultation of its users, via various soft and hard forks.
The problem is, the reward system has been tweaked with one thing in mind, how to make sure it can't be gamed. Whereas there should have been over considerations in mind, such as, does it actually do what it's supposed to do?
Social Proof Web3 Style
Even the most independent minded thinkers among us, those who claim to be leaders and not followers, the loners, all use social proof, sometimes without even realising it.
Whether it be choosing which film to watch or what company to purchase from, social proof comes into play. You are more likely to buy a product with four stars and thousands of reviews, than you are one with five stars but only ten reviews.
On a Web3 social platform like Hive the social proof is a little different, it centres directly around money. If someone has a lot of Hive Power (HP) they have a lot of Hive and that Hive is worth money and that makes them a blockchain celebrity, more commonly referred to as a whale. If one of these whales puts out a post, they will instantly get lots of votes and comments regardless of the quality of the post. We can see this happening on standard social media sites like Twitter, a celebrity can literally tweet anything, Elon Musk could tweet the word "orange" and he will get thousands of retweets, likes and replies telling him how clever and funny he is for recognising "orange".
The problem with fiscally-led social proof, is that it leads to a situation whereby quality content creators who don't have the money to invest in Hive, will be largely ignored.
Fixing The System
The fix is easy, simply hide the amount of rewards on a given post and more importantly, hide each user's wallet and any indication of how much Hive Power an individual has.
The removing of financial information will allow Hive to give the appearance of functioning like "normal" social media.
But why should Hive look like normal social media?
Well that's down to that same ugly beast we've discussed above, social proof.
It's all well and good to take what appears to be the higher moral ground and shun any attempt to make Hive like Facebook, Medium, or any other social media site you care to mention. However the stark objective truth is,
the tens of millions of people who create social media accounts every single day, do so with certain expectations in mind. Those expectations have been placed there by what is deemed in their minds as socially acceptable. Like it or not, people use Facebook, Twitter and the rest not because they have to, but because they want to.
You might cite the amount of bot and fake accounts on those sites, but that doesn't detract away from the fact that there are billions of real people on those sites and they are on there for a reason.
A potential new user of a social media site is following the invisible rules of social proof. Does the site look like they expect it to? Can they comment on posts? Can you like and dislike posts? Can you share posts on other social media sites?
Hive answers yes on all of these questions, but the most crucial ones are yet to come.
Can I find content I want at a glance by using the reviews of others?
And
As a creator can I follow a tried and tested path to success?
Hive answers a big fat No on those.
The Natural Path To Success
You may not agree with the last two assertions that a new user cannot find content they want by looking at 'most liked' content, and potential new creators won't be able to follow a tried and tested path to success. However if you look at it from another angle, you might just begin to see that the theory is not that far-fetched at all.
No doubt like myself you have witnessed channels on Youtube or Twitter feeds "blow up" and become really popular from humble beginnings.
I personally have seen many channels on Youtube start with a few hundred subscribers and grow exponentially to tens or even hundreds of thousands within a relatively short space of time. The one constant with all these people who grow successful channels, is their output. They pick their subject matter and they make post after post, tweaking, adjusting, improving, but always posting.
Once that happens they build a small but regular audience who like their content, bringing new eyeballs and more likes, which turns into subscribers or followers and the whole thing snowballs. If the content is good and people like it, there's a good chance a new user can attain thousands of users in just a few months.
This is not being replicated on Hive for two simple reasons, the first is they have no Hive Power to start with. The second is that the greater the value of the final payout on the post, the larger the reward is for the person voting. Therefore from a purely selfish point of view, it is better to vote on posts that are going to make a lot of money regardless of the quality of the post.
Whilst an introduction post may get eyeballs (and upvotes) onto them, their posts are not going to hit in the same way they would if nobody had any idea how much Hive Power they had and crucially, how much their posts are making.
This is the same reason that Youtube creator tips suggest that you do not show how many likes you have on a video until you have a decent amount to display. That way people are concentrating on your content rather than how popular you are.
But surely if somebody has good quality content and they pump it out regularly, they will attain the followers they deserve?
Well yes and no.
The fact remains Hive's main USP is it rewards you for voting on content, therefore the average user is much more likely to use their vote to reward content that is going to end up with a lot of money on it whether they like that content or not, because at the end of the day that strategy will give them bigger curator rewards.
We can't be angry about this, you can't tempt people in by saying you'll reward them for voting, and then get upset when they only want to vote on the content that is going to generate the most rewards for them.
Will Removing Financial Social Proof Work?
You may argue that even without highlighting how much HP an account has got, you're still going to be able to see who the whales are, simply by looking at the follower count and previous posts.
At first, that will be absolutely true, however we are hoping for more than just the thirty or thousand regular users (when I last checked) than we've got now; aren't we?
In the future when there are hundreds of thousands and more using Hive, people maybe voting on content purely because they like it and if they get rewarded more for any one bit of content than they do another then great, however the desire for greater rewards on individual posts will play less of a role simply because they won't be able to tell at a glance where their rewards have come from.
I truly believe that this simple tweak, removing indications of HP holdings and the dollar rewards on posts will have a positive effect on new users in that more people will read and vote on their posts. This in turn will encourage them to make more content which will go on to do well and inspire others to create content for Hive.
After all, what is a social media site without content?
What About The Guilds?
You may offer a final argument citing the voting guilds such as Curie, BuildAWhale and others. These guilds were set up with the intention of encouraging and supporting new users.
The problem is, even when the guild offers continual support, it doesn't take away from the ugly truth that they do little to bring ordinary users to their content and of course most of those votes are auto votes by people who aren't even aware of what they're voting on, so they never actually digest the content or share or comment on it.
Improving Not Stagnating
At the end of the day we should always be looking to improve, however that improvement has to be in areas that are going to have the most impact.
I recognise that the Hive devs have made tremendous improvements to the system and there are a lot of people working behind the scenes making it possible for me to even post this opinion.
Hard work or not, it would be remiss of me not to point out the areas that we have been lacking in and this is one of them because by hiding all reward indicators we can truly hold up Hive as a viable alternative to traditional social media sites.
WHAT DO YOU THINK? SHOULD THE REWARD SYSTEM BE A LOT MORE HIDDEN? WOULD THIS GIVE PEOPLE A CHANCE TO GROW? WOULD THE TYPE OF CONTENT THAT GETS VOTED TO THE TOP OF TRENDING BE ANY DIFFERENT?
OR DO YOU THINK IT WILL NOT MAKE A BLIND BIT OF DIFFERENCE?
AS EVER, LET ME KNOW BELOW!
Cryptogee