Do we really need so many Tribes and Tokens?

Yesterday i was checking my Hive engine tokens and to be honest, there are so many that i don't even know about. Then i couldn't help it but wondering if all those tokens and therefore tribes are actually needed in here and what's their purpose.

I don't have a straight answer to give you but instead, i think that it's a rather complicated one given the extent of it. Let's start by digging in though and talk more about these tribes and tokens.

In order to do that we need to have an estimate of the accounts that transact here on Hive. I checked the latest stats from @penguinpablo which you can find here. I will take into account the transacting accounts which let's say are 14k. A transacting account is the following:

A 'transacting account' is a Hive account that made at least one transaction on the Hive blockchain. This can be a vote, post, comment, transfer, power up or HBD conversion. Users who only read from the Hive blockchain without interacting are not included. The actual number of 'Active users' is therefore much higher than the accounts transacting.

Now i am not completely sure but given that a transacting account is considered any account that made at least one transaction on the Hive blockchain that should mean that it doesn't matter the front-end right? (correct me on that if i am wrong).

At the same time, we have 2787 unique users that posted on Leo which i think falls under the category above. Because i am cool let's pretend that the total active accounts are more than 14k and let's say that there are 50k.

Still, it's not a big number for what Hive represents. Now if we have 50k active accounts we have to note that some of them are alt accounts. Many people have more than one alt account in order to keep their tokens separate and cast their votes from there.

So let's say that from those 50k the 10k are alt accounts, so we have a total of 40k active accounts. Now i think Hive has more than 50 tokens and tribes, maybe way more tribes.

If you check those tribes on Hive you can see how many are active users on each one. The top tribes have a little bit above 1000 active users, a "mediocre" tribe (according to the active users only) has around 200-400 and a small one less than 100.

Imagine that the top tribes are under 10 so that's another way to count people but that won't be so precise as many users are active on more than one tribe. The point is that all these tribes have just a few people.

So do we really need them?

Do we need so many Tribes: The Answer

To be perfectly honest i think yes we need so many tribes and maybe more of them as well. The reason is that we need to attract more and more people that we are interested in different stuff.

It doesn't matter if, for example, i am not interested in birds, some people not only are interested but they love birds. Thus, a tribe like this will be their new home.

The goal is to attract people that love different kind of stuff and let them post about them or build anything they want around that tribe and small ecosystem.

The only thing that i am against is when people are creating tribes just for the sake of it. I don't want for example someone that doesn't care at all about gaming, to create a tribe like that. I want the people who love a certain something to be the ones behind the wheels of that Tribe, ofc if they want it themselves as well.

Do we need so many Tokens: The Answer

This is rather more complicating because i think creating a token should be an easy decision. For me, we have many tokens, and most of them don't even have a value. Not all tokens are the same though, some are for engagement, some are for content creation and some are something else entirely.

I believe that most tokens that were created are without a long-term plan or a "capable" team not in the sense of skills that much, but regarding the dedication.

Also, some of those tokens are a product of excitement or fast money, something that isn't exactly the formula of success. You need to see the market and what the market needs and even if your token is something that the market needs, you need to promote it greatly.

So once again i would say that although tokens are awesome before everyone is about to create one or still thinking it, he/she should research it. Check the trends, the market needs, how much time are you willing to invest, what you will need, what people will you need and don't hesitate to ask for help or for partnerships.

If we simply create tokens for the sake of it will do the reverse of what we are trying no accomplish. This place will look like a token dumpster, you will "lose' your credibility in the community and of course, you aren't gonna make money at all.