Sometimes I look around and leave shaking my head. How many more Hive posts will trend today? Is this the Covid-19 forum? Why did it only take me three seconds to find a noob named 'medicant' publishing total nonsense? Why does it take three hours of scrolling the same feed to find someone new I'd actually be interested in following? Have I become a fussy prick?
I'll be an 'Orca' in less than a week.
Congratulations?
It's so strange. I used to read posts back in the day that stated things like, "You'll never become an Orca by blogging alone."
So I'd sit and watch all these shitheads with their tricks and gimmicks. With a sizable wallet, steadily selling, constant barrage of daily shit posts, vote selling, alternate accounts, voting rings, automation bots, yadda yadda yadda; sure, someone actually could pull 50k out of the reward pool and Orcanize themselves by "blogging."
Dumbass me over here did it the "hard" way.
Maybe it's all due to a technicality but I'll take it.
The SP that's slowly becoming HP was all earned by producing actual content.
I'm one of those dipshits who signed up to that "experiment" back in 2016 with nothing in the wallet, thinking it would be like Youtube, where I could simply produce content and slowly grow a supportive following.
You can follow the money by scrolling through my blog and see where things started to go really well, then, continue on the path, and watch how someone attempting to grow organically (me) would earn peanuts while the profiteers using tricks and gimmicks laughed their asses all the way to the bank.
Playing by the rules, sticking to the original vision, and working hard actually made me feel kind of silly at times because those other folks were "becoming orcas" every month or so, several times per year.
Set it and forget it. Some didn't even have to look at posts or be contributing members of the community.
Came so close to losing everything.
I nearly became one of the thousands who left due to being forced out of business. Nobody of sound mind wants to pay a toll to post on a platform that allows free posting, in order to be competitive, especially when the competition consists of shit posters and plagiarists who scared all the consumers away.
At the time, I would have had to purchase more and higher powered votes in order for my work to rise above the shit posters and shady crew. Meaning those selling votes would have made even more money due to that wall of garbage put in place, and I would have been broke.
I studied the business model thoroughly and realized quite early, the precise moment the vote selling "for visibility" model becomes as successful as it possibly could was also the moment it collapses in on itself and dies.
If you're attempting to purchase a top slot on trending and do so with 100 others lining up for the same thing at the same moment, you'll end up purchasing maybe ten minutes worth of "trending time" before your post is knocked down by the rest of the competition. Who would spend hundreds for ten minutes of time on a platform that lacked genuine consumers?
Meanwhile, tens of thousands can't compete no matter how hard they try, so they're forced out of business and leave.
To top it all off, this is an attention economy, and many of the top earners were getting paid to look away.
How long would you last in retail if you allowed any old merchadiser off the street to place their junk in the high traffic areas, all while placing the products the consumer actually came to buy in the worst possible locations like a top shelf most can't reach?
That's how you win the Darwin Award!
I'm happy it happened because there's no better way of learning what not to do.
And I'm so glad I see them trying it out again on Steem.
It's a game for suckers designed by profiteers who'll eagerly prey upon the gullible minds of those desperate for attention.
Create a problem then offer a solution for a fee. That's the oldest trick in the book. Dates all the way back to those travelling snake oil salesmen I learned about as a child while watching black and white western movies with my elders.
Seeing them do it again on Steem reminds me of a disgusting analogy. Gangstas shooting gangstas. A problem that'll eventually solve itself.
Of course it doesn't work like that but since they are not part of this community, them buying votes over there means they're helping us get rid of the competition.
Combine that with all the other problems they have going on and it's almost damn time we start sending over thank you cards.
Maybe a gift basket.
Hive isn't perfect!
Oops. Did I just make you spit out your drink?
I have a couple things to complain about but first and foremost please recognize the fact I want this platform to succeed.
Based on the amount of Hive fandom I seem to be seeing a lot of lately (preaching to the choir), being negative is probably frowned upon. Constructive criticism on a platform that adores free speech should be more than welcome though, one would think.
- General content produced by the masses.
- Development news, Hive news, platform politics, etc.
These two do not mix well together, especially when they're ranked high, making up top slots on the trending page, and in direct competition for eyeballs.
My home can be a bit messy at times but I still know where everything is.
I'm suggesting the recent development news, Hive content, internal memo style posts and the like get their own home. Instead of being mixed in with 'trending' content, I'd like to see it all sorted into something like a 'Hive News' tab or 'Recent Developments' tab.
The variety of general content intended for a wide audience stays on 'trending' but that can be renamed to something like 'What's Popular' or 'Popular Now'.
The actual trending content would then be near the top slots of their respective group.
In my mind, it makes no sense to publish important news, then have that news bumped down by my art, your photography, a good musical performance, that awesome story about your mom, the outrageous conspiracy theory, or whatever.
Why am I scrolling for days to find that post about Hive keychain being updated or the how to install Hive keychain post? Wouldn't it make more sense to have this critical information all in one spot, sitting high in top slots for many more hours because a photography post can't bump it down?
Yes. It would make more sense to have it all organized.
Vice versa. If I want to be entertained after learning everything I need to know that day, why must I scroll through all this technical stuff just to find something to immerse myself in and maybe meet someone new?
Again, these two types of content don't mix well and it's pointless to have it all competing against each other when it's equally important.
Something as simple as a properly tagged post or even the usage of a community should be enough to sort this out.
Then we're left with popular content everyone can enjoy in one space, and another space where everyone can go to inform themselves, so people can stop saying this place is too hard and "they didn't know how."
Lastly...
When you're looking at that money beside a post, please keep in mind only half goes to the publisher.
I'm witnessing some folks complain about others earning money here. That's been going on for years. What I'm seeing lately though is something like:
"They're earning 40 bucks! For that!"
No. They're earning twenty.
Celebrate success; let people have fun. If you see a post making the big bucks, realize it can also be considered a generous offering since half of that value is going back to the contributing community members who voted.
Popularity is common in this industry. It happens. If more and more consumers are voting for something or someone because they like it or like them, let it happen!
If all we're going to do is allow developers, a few worthy witnesses, and some folks with fat wallets to earn the big bucks while the rest of the general content creators are forced to work under some kind of an unwritten rule of a salary cap, that'll just lead to disappointment; animosity.
If someone is posting three or four times per day and that content always reaches top slots then yeah, I understand, it's time to step in and make reward adjustments. Other than that though, save the downvote power for actual instances of abuse, like that "medicant" character I mentioned off the top, or the King.
Zing!
That's all. Thanks for putting up with me!
Have a nice day.
