During my holidays, I took a moment to ponder several questions that were bothering me for quite some time. One was to figure out why Hive was not really growing in terms of users and also in terms of price.
I have to say that I don't really have data other than the statistical posts that @dalz and @arcange are sharing. From these posts, I deduce that hive is not really growing in terms of number of users or transactions. On the contrary in terms of active users, I have the impression that we are at the level that preceded the boom linked to Splinterlands in 2021.
source: @arcange/hive-statistics-202506-en
What are the reasons for the lack of growth?
During the past years, there were quite a lot of efforts that went into promoting Hive through different projects financed by the DHF or by value plan. It seems that all these efforts were not really successful. I was wondering what we were doing wrong?
What is the unique selling proposition of Hive?
A unique selling proposition (USP) is a concise statement that highlights what makes a product or service distinct and better than the competition. It's a core element of a company's marketing strategy, conveying a specific benefit that resonates with customers and compels them to choose that particular offering. Essentially, it answers the question: "Why should I buy from you instead of someone else?"
source: Gemini
When trying to market a product or service, the first step is to try to figure out what is the USP of this product or service. On this basis the target public can then be selected and according marketing measures can be figured out.
To answer this question, I realized that the answer is not that straight forward. What is the thing that makes Hive great? I had several potential answers:
Earn money online
Hive is one of the only places that allows you to earn money online. However, in respect to the effort given, the income is probably not high enough for most people in developed countries. It is maybe just enough for people living in countries with little average income. For them Hive as a way to earn money online is appealing. However, for these people the income is too important to leave most of it on the platform. The earnings are often taken out to cover living expenses. By promoting this aspect of hive, we attract a population that probably won't bring new money to the blockchain, they will rather withdraw what they earn and the influx of new people will be compensated by the sell pressure on the token. Therefore, I don't believe that this should be the USP of Hive.
A blockchain to build anything
Hive is a great place to build and develop apps. It's actually quite easy to interact with the blockchain but there are unfortunately still no smart contracts. The other negative aspect is that the documentation for developers is probably not the best maintained one. Then there is a very important point that seems to me a problem for any developer and it's the difficulty to create accounts for people outside of hive. There are some solutions but even me as a long time hivian don't know which ones work and what they require to create accounts. If you plan to build an app or a game, you don't want your users to have a complicated experience when they want to join the game and don't have a hive account.
That is probably also the reason why communities and apps don't manage to bring a lot of users from outside to hive. The account creation process is simply too complicated and reduces the number of people that join Hive.
Hive offers a safe place to interact and meet people from all over the world
While I believe that this is true, I think it's too weak a point for an USP. Also not everybody on Hive would agree with that. As long as we have toxic witch hunts and downvote battles to punish people who make a mistake, we don't really have this. I know that there is abuse and I know that we need to fight it. However, I believe we have to do it in an educational way. When we see some wrong behavior, in my opinion the first step is to inform the author about it and give him the chance to change his behavior before we put him on a downvote trail.
When I publish something on other platforms, I often need to tick that I accept the rules (no plagiarism, no AI, no copy paste,... ). I think it would be great if the front-ends of Hive implemented something like that, because at least it would be clear for new users what is ok and what is not.
A place to do everything from playing games, to investing, to blogging, to have a nice time with friends
Hive is the Swiss army knife of blockchains. It's great but it doesn't really allow to stand out. Hive is good at almost everything but not really perfect at all of it. Whereas I believe that it's great to have all the options on Hive, I don't think that this will allow to attract people.
I had to accept that I didn't really know what the USP of Hive is and we probably first need to figure it out together before we do more marketing. Without USP, we can't define the target public and therefore all marketing efforts will be a waste of money.
What is your opinion about that? Do you have an USP for Hive in mind that I didn't mention?
With @ph1102, I'm running the @liotes project.
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