Yesterday I made a buzz about improving user retention on Hive.
I didn't give the proper context, which is to be aware that most apparent improvements in user retention are due to an increasing proportion of long-time users. Long-timers are more likely to stick around, as I have written about before, and the longer Hive exists, the larger proportion of the userbase they form.
So just to add to what I wrote yesterday, I updated another chart which shows only the retention rate for brand new users, ie. how many brand new users who posted in their first month went on to post again in their second month. This has hovered mostly below 40% for the entire lifetime of the project, with some exceptions. During the Steem era, it was on average 35.81% brand new users retained per month. In the era of Hive, it has been 37.93%. Here is the updated chart.
In 2023 so far the average has been 40.7%. That might seem like a marginal improvement, and it is certainly not a sea change, but that is more of an improvement than it might sound. We are currently retaining 7.3% more new users each month than we normally do, and 13.6% more new users than we did in the Steem era. The more people we keep around for at least a second month, the more chance Hive has to spread through word of mouth, among people's personal social networks.
Conclusion
- User Retention is Improving
- That is mostly due to more long timers, but new user retention has also improved
- There is still major room for improvement on user retention
- Given improved user retention in 2023, our recent declines in user activity reflect worsening numbers for overall user onboarding rates.