Intro
If you are an active Twitter user, it may have come to your attention that discussions about Web 3 and even Web 5 have emerged from various angles. It seems that many people are looking forward to this shift of change. For example, Jack Dorsey, former CEO of Twitter and current CEO of 'Block' has launched his perspective about what Web 5 should look like. Numerous users of Hive have expressed their thoughts after seeing the correlation between Hive and Dorsey's Web 5 presentation. According to some, it is a 1:1 explanation of what Hive is today.
Where are the mentions about Hive, the FIRST fully decentralized web 3 social media protocol?
Ever since Facebook and Twitter's former CEO Jack Dorsey's announcement that they are planning to dive into the world of Blockchain technology to create a new "Fully decentralized social web", the masses have responded with much enthusiasm and can't seem to wait until their launch. But where are the articles that cover Hive, the first fully decentralized web 3 social media protocol?
A rising threat to Hive
Web 2 social media platforms such as Twitter are shadow banning tags that are related to the Hive blockchain. Some users that try to promote the Hive blockchain are even being banned "due to a violation of the terms of service policy". This makes it incredibly challenging to spread the word about Hive. Ironically, Twitter and Facebook are both entities that are considered to be highly centralized, many blockchain enthusiasts believe. One of the reasons they cease using it.
It isn't so surprising that these gigants are trying to block any form of competition. However, it is by definition in conflict with what they preach to be or to become: decentralized.
Decentralization:
"The dispersion or distribution of functions and powers a decentralization of powers specifically, government: the delegation of power from a central authority to regional and local authorities the decentralization of the state's public school system government decentralization."
One must be wary, to believe such promises are being made when they show actions that prove otherwise. First come, first serve? Not if Facebook or Twitter can do something about that.
Let's take a closer look at Jack Dorsey's Web 5 version.
If you'd like to read more about Jack Dorsey's Web 5 explanation, you can read more about it here. I'll cover a bit of it below. It doesn't take much to be able to see that there is a lot of correlation with the Hive blockchain, which is what Web 3 is all about.
"We’re building the next generation of the decentralized web – returning data back to users. You’re welcome to join."
A catchy headline that sounds somewhat familiar? You're probably right. Hive has been selling itself as a fully decentralized blockchain since it forked from centralized blockchain Steem back in 2020. The hard fork occurred not long after Justin Sun acquired Steemit Inc. (an interface that runs on the Steem blockchain) and utilized the company's pre-mined stake, which was promised to its userbase not to be used for governance.
After the hard fork, Hive has no official founder, even though Dan Larimer claims he is still the founder of Steem and Hive. Whether the community acknowledges it or not, Dan Larimer, who invented DPoS, has been a key person within the community until his departure in 2018.
Jack Dorsey's Web 5 is built with 4 components and 3 actors
According to Jack Dorsey's explanation about Web 5, TBD works with so-called 'components' and 'actors'. If you take a closer look at these references, more similarities with Hive can be discovered within their explanations.
Decentralized Identifiers (DIDs) v1.0
"Decentralized Identifiers are a W3C international standard for identifiers created, owned, and controlled by individuals, without reliance on centralized entities"
This is an explanation of what a Hive account is. A Hive account is a Digital Decentralized Identifier (DDID). It is created, controlled, and owned by individuals, without reliance on centralized entities. The creation of these DDIDs is also verified by our Witnesses. Furthermore, these DDISs also serve as identifiers for future access as more dApps are built on the Hive blockchain. Other than DDIDs, a Hive account could also be seen as a Non-Fungible Token (NFT) as it is unique and cannot be duplicated or altered after its creation.
In short: you only need one Hive Username (DDID/NFT) to have and grant access to all other Hive-built applications, now and in the future. Anyone could build an application on Hive.
Decentralized Web Node (DWN) SDK
"An implementation of DIF's* emerging decentralized personal datastore standard."
*DIF: Decentralized Identity Foundation
These DWN SDKs are quite similar to how Witness Nodes are being run on the Hive blockchain. Yet, Hive Nodes are considered to be king compared to the yet-to-be-developed DWN SDKs of Dorsey. Besides having the sole purpose of just storing personal data, every user that runs a Witness node verifies or nullifies blockchain transactions. This is completely decentralized as Witnesses are being democratically picked and chosen by their community.
Self-Sovereign Identity Service (SSI-Service)
"An in-a-box service that handles the full Verifiable Credentials lifecycle, including issuance, verification, revocation, and more."
Self-Sovereign Identity SDK (SSI-SDK)
"Standards-based primitives for using Decentralized Identifiers and Verifiable Credentials."
These two components are technologies that are often used with blockchain technologies. If you want to know more about Self-Sovereign Identity, this article explains more about that topic.
While Jack Dorsey's Web 5 version assumes it should work with a single User Interface, Design-wise, there are already multiple User Interfaces built on top of the Hive blockchain with each a unique design. Just to name a few blogging platforms that run on the Hive Blockchain, HiveBlog, PeakD, and Eccency. Besides Blogging platforms, a big player in the NFT metaverse is Splinterlands, which fully operates and relies on the Hive Blockchain.
One might think someone read Hive's whitepaper, fell in love, and copy/pasted it. The correlation between Hive and Dorsey's Web 5 is undeniable, and shouldn't be ignored. Dan Larimer invented DPoS, he founded Steemit Inc. six years ago. Dorsey's idea of a fully decentralized web was already thought off, 6 years ago. What is the reason why Jack Dorsey's copy of Dan Larimer's decentralized web3 protocol is picked up by the media, and Hive itself isn't?
Why is Hive overlooked every single time?
It may be frustrating to some of these 350.000 - 700.000 monthly active users on Hive to be overlooked more than once. After the Justin Sun hostile takeover, you might think that Hive would have received a decent amount of attention.
However, the media attention that Hive received perished over time. This might be odd, considering the rise of discussions about Web 3 among Web 2 social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter. On the other end, Google doesn't mention anything about Hive when searching for "Web 3 Social Media". It would be hard to blame Web 2 for not knowing about Hive.
This is why Hive should start with publishing articles on media platforms known to the masses. While publications of these articles about Hive come with a price tag, it should be the next move for Hive if Hive wants to keep up with its competition. Simultaneously, fundamental SEO-optimized content should be added to the official website of Hive.
Overall, Hive is a blockchain that continues to prove it is beating other blockchains. Not to mention, Hive is fully decentralized.
Hive is ready
Currently, @starkerz, @shadowspub, and I are talking about how we can address and approach this battle. Any assistance is more than welcome. Are you a professional writer that can write long-form articles ad-hoc? Send @ShadowsPub or me a message on Discord, you can find us both on the official Hive Discord server.
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