Well, first of all, I find this to be quite an interesting topic to discuss. Because it actually involves a lot of things. By instance, because it mainly involves that the title or headline of that article, its opening picture and its first visible sentence with which it begins must have the power of having attracted your attention and curiosity enough to click on it to open it and read it in first place. Am I wrong about this?
Ok, let's say you agree with me. Let's say you found an article with these compelling attributes and clicked on it. What happened after that? I guess you started reading it. ¿Correct? Or did you just start quickly skimming over it?
Skimming over it, just to extract and store in your memory some of the most important elements of what the author has written merely to give you a general idea of what the article is about. To then quickly get to the end of the article to simply check who has voted for it and who has commented there before you? Am I right?
And then start to detect if the author actually responds to the comments. If they vote the comments and how well they vote them depending on what the commenters commented on and so on. That it's only at that moment when some, very few, then deign to re-read the content from top to bottom with greater attention to try to comment with something of value seeking that the author also generously upvote their comment and opinion on what the author has written?
Well, I bet some simply tempt fate and comment right away something with only what they thought they understood about the author content and their reasons for posting it through the quick skimming process. Often, this seems to me too obvious!
But now I hope you tell me. Do you think that what I have described above is what really happens more frequently in Hive? That people only comment if they have something to gain? Whether it's due the pyrrhic monetary gains at the time of comment or gaining the attention and curiosity of an opulent and generous author who tends to upvote well his/her commenters and who could eventually do the same with their own content? Do you think this is quite common in our social network?
Well, I have to confess that I also check who has voted a post and with how much each one of them has voted it for. As well as of course I also verify who has already commented, if the comments have been voted on, by whom and how much they've been voted for. I suspect that we all are as curious as that. Pretty curious indeed!
But in my case, I solely do this, only and exclusively after having read with total and absolute attention the content of the author from top to bottom and each and every one of the comments that this post has obtained at the moment of even contemplating the possibility of also leaving my comment. Are you one of these?
Yeah, I suppose there are not many exuberant and extravagant curious people, like me, who likes to dedicate the necessary time to things to consume them, absorb them and digest them first in all its dimension and fully understand them well before opening their big mouths. Especially if a chance to earn money is involved.
When there's money involved and the chance to make it fast, people never seem to have enough time to learn anything in the process. There never seems to be enough time for that. In social networks like this, whose content is monetized. I have come to the conclusion that people couldn't care less about what a content creator has written and tried to convey. They really don't give a rat ass about the content.
Either because many have the chance of automating their votes and voting blindly to try to extract a minimum slice of the 50% of the "curation" rewards that the author's content provides them... ?¿? erm... by the way. Are you one of those?
Or because in case you have actually clicked on a post to open it. It always will be more profitable to simply take a quick look skimming through it as I've described above, verify everything that I have already said before, comment something only if the thing promises and that then you dispose of more free time to go to the next one and do exactly the same? ¿Are you an enlightenment seeker? Yeah, I imagined that!
¡This Side Up!
I wonder what would happen if, through an upcoming hardfork, the platform allowed outside people to comment on a post without first having a Hive account?
Do you think that would only attract a lot of undesired spam into the ecosystem? That this would only attract meaningless external comments and potential scams that if it has not been done well through the hardfork, it would exponentially increase the number of transactions in the blockchain unnecessarily?
¿And why should it?
I guess it would be feasible to give access to comment to a wider online external population without mandatorily having to generate a transaction in the blockchain. Since currently for this it would be necessary to have Resource Credits.
But what if, through a well-done code modification, this was no longer necessary. That you only register through an email account or one of your other social network accounts and verify them just to be able to comment without having to reward anyone monetarily or earn money just for commenting?
Do you think that this change in the code would have the potential to attract many more new users and investors and encourage them to participate, interact and study our platform with greater interest and depth so as to eventually convince them to finally invest some money and become users with all the rights, rewards and advantages that this network would offer them like to everyone else?
Well, just let that crazy idea sinks deeper for a moment!
I understand that there are already some floating Hive projects out there on second layer fluttering around this crazy idea. And in my opinion it seems to me that they are not mistaken in their approach and that after almost six years of experience regarding what seems to have kept the growth of this social network stagnant, a crazy idea like this is more than justified as to want to test it for a true evolution.
Meanwhile. For those with the real power and resources to bring about these code changes. Whether for better or for worse. What if for the moment you only consider reactivating and giving us back that old feature of being able to know how many views our posts have had? ¿Remember that eye shaped icon at the end of our posts?
Nah! not that one. That's just a joke. Just a prank to hint at what that eye could turn out to be. Because I believe that real eyes are what this social network is missing.
But, this other EYE!
Do you remember that eye? Holy cow! then you are already an old veteran in this social network on the blockchain. ¿Eh? And if you are that old on this platform and you have already seen what we have all seen and experienced during all these years. At least I would hope and would aspire that you comment something about what I have written here today. ¿Wouldn't you too?
Of course I know and am well aware that just adding that icon shaped eye and its proper functionality was not going to achieve any radical or substantial change to the organic growth of the platform. Neither would it attract many new users and willing investors to put some "skin in the game" into the ecosystem.
But I don't know why I have the hunch that it could have some impact (even if it was slight) in the retention of users that we already have making a living in our social network in the blockchain so that they still persist in their effort and dedication to make the platform grow through their often invisible content. ¿What do you think?
Well, I'm sure this article has already been quite long and annoying. So I'll leave it until here. But I still hope that you haven't just taken a quick look at it skimming everything until the end without understanding a damn of what I've said and wanted to highlight through this strange and outlandish diatribe.
Because I am not an affluent user. And certainly not one of the most popular and most voted either. So, if that was precisely what you did and you dare to comment right away without having read and digested everything as is due, you could only get a few meager cents from me. And I know that's not what you want!
So I recommend that you read it all again and carefully. As to try to leave a valuable comment that is really worth it. Just in case that some opulent and distracted user who clicked on the title of this post by mistake gets to read your comment and rewards you as you expect. Me, apart from voting you, maybe I will also follow you.