Introducing my alt account dedicated for shitposting scribbles on Hive. Follow it if you like reading scribbles.
What a great time to be alive and see what blockchain technology can do for us all. This is the real revolution against centralized control. This is where dreams come true and every scribbled thoughts you share to the world gets you paid if people vote on it.
Where else can you find a platform that pays you for sharing your pictures of your food, flowers from your walks, daily exercise routine that no one cares, and shower thoughts? When you market a platform that sells the idea to get paid to blog, well you get people that come in that blog and expect to get paid. I think whoever made that slogan didn’t expect users can come from diverse cultures and how their cultures value money. How people would alter their behaviors towards actions that engender monetary rewards.
But this is the main point why most would have bothered clicking the ad since time from the old blockchain began. It’s less about censorship and more about the rewards that stirs the ecosystem we have here. Now when I say less about the censorship, that just means there are actually people using the technology for their anti-censorship advocacy but most can’t be bothered about censorship issues because it would only be a concern until they are the ones being censored.
So, a lot of people don’t really care about censorship and the anti-censorship movement until they are unable to be opinionated about anything they care about. If you’re like me who has to be careful with what I say in public as it bears lethal consequences, then we are fighting at different fronts.
For those that can speak freely about how unfair the system is without worrying if their VPN is working or have their names on some government watchlist, good for you, you’re living the anticensorship fight on easy mode. Let me tell how receiving death threats for having an opinion changes your life, it sucks.
If one can still post without worrying if they got VPN on and the lethal consequences of using their free speech online, then congratulations, they’re leaving the easy mode of the resistance. Some of us here have to be anonymous because we’re on some watch list our local government keeps an eye on.
I am dumbfounded at how the downvote tool censors free speech on a blockchain when it doesn’t and the people that cry censorship are just crying for the rewards that have yet to reach the 7 day payout. You’re not being censored, you’re just being rewarded less for the thoughts you share and that makes a world of difference.
Have you heard about mean whales being mean? Guess what, even minnows, redfish, dolphins and orcas can be assholes too. Stake here doesn’t change your personality, it’s just a measure of how much you can be a bigger dick compared to everyone else in the ecosystem. Listen, if an asshole had a small amount of stake, would they stop being an asshole? Sorry, it’s what people do with what they got and their attitude that makes them dicks or angels.
Have you heard about the entitlement problem? Probably one of the best prevalent problems I’ve seen existing here since the beginning of the blockchain’s inception. Borrowing some shower thoughts from a friend, the mindset of whales being the bad guys need to disappear.
There are assholes among them.The mindset of "whales bad" need to disappear. There are definitely assholes among them, but Hive is one of the only ecosystem where the poor complain and bitch about not being allocated a "fair share" of the inflation when they have no skin and provide little to no value in the game. Yet, many live off of the earnings they make here with their zero impact "content".
I can definitely say I can get behind those ideas right. If you had a virtual wallet and each time you upvote someone here means some coins get taken out from your wallet, would you spend it on content that doesn’t even entertain you or owned by your friends? People subscribe to content creators for two main reasons, skill and entertainment. Showing butts behind thongs is entertainment. Show clips of first person shooter game montages is skill. Showing comedy skit is skill and entertainment.
And most content published here are just derivatives of other content like sharing a link they like or talking about how they feel about the content rather than pulling some genuinely entertaining idea out of their ass that would make people off the platform want to click and find out about this place.
If the idea is unoriginal and just a derivative of an existing work, at least put some effort enough to make it acceptably transformative that only you can do. If there is no such thing as an original content then by all means we have stopped making new stuff centuries ago. The argument that no content out there is really original doesn’t apply to research.
I for one think it’s amazing new proteins synthesized by genetically engineered bacteria (E. coli) that never existed in nature were created and that’s original. Knowledge expands and more is generated and added to the pool. Whenever someoen claims there’s no such thing as original content anymore, I get a mental picture that the person probably never spent a lot of time making a thesis or diving into STEM work.
I’m not throwing shade on every content creator that puts their heart and soul on their craft shared here. There are really great content creators that post here, it’s just that the bell curve favors the average and below average when it comes to quality posts. Not everyone is good at content creation but everyone can be a good content consumer without persuasion.
The level of entitlement some users have can be off the charts, it’s like wanting the benefits of hard work without the years spent refining the skill set to earn those benefits. Just because some random upvote with a lot of stake said your posts are worth a lot of $, and have been receiving that love frequently doesn’t make your content actually worth that. You’re just getting sucked into the dopamine that comes along being valued. Do you think your art shared on facebook, dinner pics, or status updates about your routine exercises would have some random stranger/friend/family ask if they could give you a tip for existing?
So either you get really good at your craft or be an entertaining personality to get some value pumped into the platform. Go try using other centralized platforms where people are promoting themselves for free with their content, you’d see a marked difference between skill and these people don’t get paid upvotes. These creators create for views and engagement not upvotes (because views and engagement are going to give them sponsors if they get decent traction).
If Hive (and other blockchains that give out social rewards from posting) were gone, where would you be as a self proclaimed content creator? Probably somewhere else marketing yourself because you are a content creator of course, but for people that convinced themselves that their works are top notch just cause it was upvoted with phat $, try expanding your reach to other social media (to realize how much of a small fish you are to the greater ecosystem). I’d be on deviantart, instagram, pixiv and twitter doing art things cause this has always been my hobby that I can eventually transition to serious content creation side gig (or remain as posting for kicks and giggles without any monetary incentive like I’ve been doing for the past years).
Here’s a thought, if you saw your own post, would you actually give yourself the same value as you think it’s worth or let strangers decide how it will be worth? Again, a lot of posts are just scribbles you can find on any other social media, and people know it by themselves that they won’t get paid if they shared their content on those social media (but they get likes, shares, and cute emojis so that’s something).
I don’t see the point of making the trending page a gauge for value. I mean, I don’t even look at the trending content on entertainment sites I’ve been using. Some content just get voted up and some don’t, that’s just how people use their stake and get over it. It’s not like people watch videos on Youtube’s trending page if it’s not in their field of interest, so why use a frontend’s trending page as an argument that it sucks. All trending pages suck in the eyes of an unpopular opinion because that’s how it goes. Majority just favored that type of content and it happens that it’s not your cup of tea.
Would Hive fail because it doesn’t like the content you like or content you churn out? Would it fail because it doesn’t give you money? I don’t know. Would it succeed if it does give you money? I’ve been always amazed at what goes into people’s heads to value their thoughts so much. Whatever value is being pumped into the platform by whiners that others should make some adjustments for them. I’m just posting scribbles, these have always been scribbles and nothing more. It even surprises me that I could get more votes for thinks I just write out off a blurb.
Appreciate the small things that make sense in the ecosystem. If I had built bonds with a few people here, the same few people will likely be the ones that give a fuck about my scribbles being posted here. If they had more stake, they can and may give me more social rewards, but if they had less they’d still be around talking to me as I do with them. Don’t treat the relationships you got here as ATMs where you rank them based on how phat their upvotes are or their stake limitations can’t give you the visibility you want to reach trending (a place where most don’t care). If strangers value your stuff then it’s great. If you think the content your churning out has value, you don’t need some digital counter to validate that as people around you can do that themselves for you.