Back in the good old days when I was an ignorant dreamer, hoping that crypto would make me enough money in a few years that I could afford to stop working and travel the world, I used to be a lot more open about being involved with crypto. By that I mean in real life, like at work and stuff, telling people how awesome gambling... I mean investing in dodgy coins was.
But after the market crashed in 2018 I realized this is a tough place to be and if you're just a starry eyed pleb you can get your ass handed to you faster than you can yell bitconeeeeeeeeeect. I had many discussions trying to explain to people the opportunities that magic internet money can bring to one's financial future but most times I got funny looks and was probably labelled a crypto fanatic. But the real fun didn't start until the market went tits up that fateful year and many of my friends were like "how is that scam... I mean bitcoin thing going ?". It was hard to escape that feeling of being labelled a snake oil salesman, and the stinky part ( pun intended ) is that I didn't get any benefit from believing in the dream and sharing it with others.
That feeling stuck with me through the years and I promised that I'll keep to myself with this whole crypto gig, especially since I didn't make much money if any in my first year in crypto. People have gotten so used to how our current financial system works, on a surface level at least, that they are very reluctant to try out anything else. And with the very real possibility of losing a lot of money, that apprehension is somewhat understandable.
How about Hive? I hear you eagerly ask. Fortunately Hive is one the safest places where you can learn about and play with crypto. That being said, it takes a lot of time and effort to make it here if you're not a content creator already. For the average Joe it's way easier to post their crap on traditional social media than deal with the arbitrary quality expectations that most curators around here have. The truth of the matter is that Hive has lot of growing still to do before it becomes "noob friendly" enough for mass adoption, although after 5 years of hanging around on this little piece of crypto heaven I must wonder if some like the fact Hive feels like an exclusivist community ( puts tin foil hat on ).
As traditional social media becomes more heavy handed with censorship and demonetization I think we could convince a lot of struggling creators, on youtube for example, to switch to Hive. But for that we need way more people using the blockchain, people that actually consume content instead of the "great post" gang , and a seamless onboarding experience.
From a personal standpoint I look forward to having a big enough stack of HP that I can brighten up a struggling pleb's day. Knowing how that feels from the pleb's perspective helps with the old grinding motivation.