Recent post of @themarkymark and this one from @growthacker made me think about this one thing Hive needs to grow. I started with general thinking like marketing and user-friendly experience but these are just diagnoses of problems. Later on, my train of thoughts went to the general observations and possible solutions.
A decentralized ecosystem like Hive is alien to Web 2.0 users. It might stay alien (and unrecognized) or try to craft and tailor its features without compromising decentralized values. Elon Musk didn't convince Tesla users that his cars are eco-friendly and good for the environment, he just created a car superior to others in terms of safety, quality and user expectations. Positive impact on the environment is just a smuggled side effect.
Hive, by now, looks like this:
It's probably very efficient, futuristic, certainly superior in many aspects, but it doesn't fit a customer's
expectations and habits. It's nice to try it, but using everyday? Nah... The trick is to make it good while it seems normal and friendly in some aspects. Almost 5 years of development shows the current framework we are operating in fails to deliver this type of service. It's visible when you consider user experience, our challenges with marketing and PR issues. In my opinion, current organization model of decentralized governance might turn to be outdated soon. Not only technology moves forward, also our understanding and relationship with technology is constantly changing.
I want to iterate what I wrote in my last post about decentralization. Hive has superior tech, devoted and brilliant developers, but with time and development of other decentralized projects we can find ourselves lagging behind those, who will be able to apply it in a better way. How can we create a product more suitable for masses without compromising qualities brought by the decentralization? I have very modest knowledge in this field, there are plenty of people more qualified to this, but current structure doesn't provide them with opportunities to share and apply their knowledge. My field of interest is within systemic analysis and here I believe my observations might bring some value.
There is one perspective, which I find particularly useful in this case. There are two forces driving development of systems, cooperation and competition. Game theory. Pigeons and eagles. Only cooperation brings stagnancy, pure competition brings destruction in the long term. It's all about proper balance. Decentralized systems disrupt our current modes of using these two forces. The most productive combination of these two is going to change. We are on our way to figure out more efficient ways to apply cooperation in decentralized systems. Of course, we bring the burden of old habits, and those who will figure out, how to exclude these will lead the way.
Going down to the Earth, it might seem that between dApps on Hive are competing with each other, therefore traditional competition rules known from corporate capitalism apply here. However, there are fields where cooperation is required to thrive, thing @growthacker pointed out, no visible affiliation between dApps and Hive, trace amounts of linking between platforms, very little cross-communication, acting just like singular enterprises suspended in the void. It doesn't serve the whole ecosystem when the end-game goal is transferring all user activity from Web 2.0 apps to the Hive Web 3.0. I believe, to achieve this, more attention needs to be devoted to the relationship between dApp's owners and underlying blockchain platform.
From the other hand decentralized system for the first time in history bring the possibility to incentivize all the users to cooperate for the common goal. Removing adds and hate speech, rewards for content creation, proposals system, no fees and decentralized governance are HUGE achievements for the on-line community. I'm heavily invested in this platform and believe in it with my whole heart, this is my motivation to research it and find ways to improve it, even if I'm not a big fish.
Decentralized doesn't have to mean chaotic, and in similar way we vote for witnesses and tech solutions we might choose advisory bodies, council like entities or other decentralized governance mechanisms aiming to smooth some things impossible to solve from the level of dApp and from the level of Hive development. More efficient cooperation seems now to be the lowest hanging fruit to improve this place. We are free to create these mechanisms from the ground, without relying on the obsolete centralized solutions.
I'd love to see all the people responsible for dApps to do monthly AMA with ideas from the community to coordinate their efforts. I'd love to see monthly budget for constant marketing done like with all other crypto-projects. I'd love to see Hive's mouth speaking for the whole community on the major crypto-conferences. I'd love to see the weight of conversation shifting from changes of
technical details to looking for solutions from outside the box. However, these are things beyond reach of a single entity. This requires coordinated efforts.
We cannot just simply pretend the next tech, the next app or the lucky chance of being seen by another prominent figure, will solve issues that are with us for 5 years. It's time to start discussing potential solutions. Half of the decade is eternity in this space, and soon we might be surrounded by other decentralized social-media-like projects competing for the space in the decentralized future, which we certainly are going to see.
Anyway, love it, hate it, argue with it, just drop your thoughts!
Cheers!