When I first heard that Hive Fest was in Asia this year, I got very excited. I had almost made it to Thailand but a combination of visa complications (moving back to Japan), money issues and back issues, I ended up missing it in the end.
Finally, Hive was back in Asia! I started doing research on Kuala Lumpur, went to meet a friend from there and find out what kind of interesting side quests I could go on if I turned it into a week long trip.
But as time went on, the excitement turned to indifference....
Please don't take any of this the wrong way. I don't mean to throw any shade at Roeland or the Hive ecosystem which has treated me well, and I'm not just saying that to avoid downvotes. I’ve been here since 2017 and it’s been my home online since then. I appreciate anyone who has done work to keep this chain alive and active, even if I’ve had issues with certain things over the years.
I intentionally waited to share this because I didn't want to discourage anyone from going.
Now that Hive Fest is underway, I am starting to feel tiny pangs of regret. I will try to watch todays stream tomorrow and tomorrow's stream by the rest of the weekend.
THIS IS NOT A SLAM PIECE. Please remember that.
But I want to make an informal proposal (not a DHF proposal, just an idea we can work out over time) at the end that I think could be good for this ecosystem, so I think it’s best to put everything out on the table. Maybe it will reach Roelands ears and give him something to think about for the future, or maybe it will lead to a splinter event run by different people, giving us more opportunities to meet each other.....
But first, let me explain why my excitement faded.
It started when I was asking around... "Hive fest this year? Yeah? See you there? ;-)". Of all the people I asked, most who had been on Hive for 5+ years, not a single one said yes aside from 
I was forced to face the fact that most of my closest friends here had either burned out, been chased off chain, or their passion had cooled down, and I had to admit, my passion has become lukewarm in many ways too. That’s just how life goes.
I vowed to stay as long as I felt inspired to write and share things, as long as there were still people here actually reading my work or even just upvoting it, and as long as there were still some people worth meeting, and there are, tons of them.
But I had neglected my physical life way more than I should have in favor of this dream of a crypto future that took way too long to pan out and had way too little consensus about how to get there. I’ve been trying to become more active in the Tokyo art and music scene and start exploring this amazing country, all while working to pay the bills and get a permanent visa, so Hive has inevitably become far less than the 4-6 hour chunk of my day that it used to be.
There’s also the drama.
I always hesitate to talk about some of this stuff because I do not want to encourage anyone to leave. Hive survives only if we keep it alive. That is how decentralization works, and even if I'm feeling a little lukewarm right now, I still believe in the pursuit of the decentralization of power, and that requires tools like decentralized money and experimental governance, which Hive is a brilliant experiment in.
Lots of people don't have the same level of conviction in ideals, or the patience, or appreciation for nuance. They rage quit. They give up on dreams. They think not agreeing with a certain aspect of a community or acknowledging its flaws honestly means you don't believe in it. They either live and die by the chain or are ready to piss off as soon as things look less than ideal. Some might stay quiet until they’ve had enough. As long as I see the potential for movement, I stick around and speak my mind.
I still believe in Hive.
At the very least, it's the most useful DAO I've ever seen and the most interesting, so why the fuck wouldn't I be here?
Anyway, back to Hive Fest.
I was discouraged, but I thought I would still go. At least maybe I could meet starkerz and see directly what he's doing with local shops and usage of HBD in the real world.
Maybe I could talk to some other project leaders and share some of the difficulties Hive Japan has had in consolidating an active real world community and see if we could come up with a solution.
I'm sure I'd make some new friends too.
I could still go!
I checked the location of the event, the hotel....hmmm a little pricier than I imagined for Malaysia.... well I could always stay somewhere else...
This was where I started to doubt whether or not I should go. I just wanted to meet people, I realized I didn’t care for a conference style conference.
Malaysia has very very budget friendly choices, and this did not seem like one. The country has beaches and mountains, and though I've never been there, it's hard to imagine Kuala Lumpur being the most comfortable or ideal place for the event even if it’s the most famous.
Perhaps the only upside is that if there is a large Malaysia community (I’m not sure how big it is, but it doesn’t seem anywhere near the size of Mexico, Venezuela or Nigeria), they'd likely be most active in KL, and having locals involved is a must.
But the venue.....the scale…
We all know how a majority of Hive is not rolling in money. Travelling isn't easy for most of us. You might be able to argue that anyone able to travel overseas could probably afford to stay in such a hotel. But I'm willing to bet there were lots of people like me who were on the fence and may have gone if it was cheaper.
In my case if it were only 1 person it would have been easier to go, but I didn't want to leave my partner behind when we are hardly able travel. One Hive fest ticket and a cheap small Airbnb for a week vs two tickets and a bigger hotel room....
I get that the event costs money to run and you don't want to make it too shit. But when I looked at the location, it kind of looked like (and I could be wrong) a fancy and famous location was the priority.
Then I started thinking....the whole daytime would be watching someone speak on stage...I could do that from home.
I'm sure it would have been a lot of fun though, to meet lots of other people from Hive and go around the city together. I could have made that the focus of my trip. Which is why I still feel a little regret, especially only having met 3 people from Hive.
What is the purpose of Hive Fest?
This was the question on my mind when I decided not to go. I think it's a great thing that it's continued, and I don't want Roeland to stop and if he ever did, I hope someone else would pick it up.
But I want to see him or the other organizers consider more deeply what the purpose of this event is...
What are the priorities?
Hive is NOT a company. It doesn't have a corproate structure. It doesn't have corporate shareholders. It has ideals very different from the typical conglomerate.
It doesn't have to pander to customers and each and every member can decide if and how they want to do PR. It's investors (for the most part) all care a lot about it, and it's full of creative people.
So why does this feel so corporate!?
Even Hive’s logo has always felt too corporate for a decentralized and revolutionary way to interact with the world.
Maybe I'm too detached from regular society. Maybe I'm too much of a hippie. I don't know, I just don't see why a DAO full of creative people has such a stiff, typical conference when WE COULD DO ANYTHING!
Once again, no disrespect to Roeland. If anything it’s everyone else’s fault for not stepping up like he has. I imagine his line of thinking is that he wants to make it something that isn't alienating to people from various cultures around the world, and that's a good way to approach it. If that is made clear as a priority and thought out more (particularly concerning budget) maybe he could do even better in the future on that front.
But I think we should rethink how we could do this, or at least think seriously about some kind of alternative.
To be fair, I saw that this year there would be a bunch of speakers from other crypto related projects and it looks like it might be leaning more towards a crypto conference sponsored by Hive. That is AWESOME, it gives us more exposure to the people who would be the quickest to understand what makes Hive special.
I think that should be the future of Roelands Hive Fest, "A crypto conference organized by the Hive community"
GOOD!
But for the rest of us who just want to chill and get to know each other….
I can't stand up here and say "I'm going to start Hive Fest X", but I've floated the idea before and I want to do it publicly once again.
Any group of people who want to organize a Hive related event meant to gather users from at home and abroad can gather under a specific concept agreed on by whoever wants to take part in organizing it. Funding can come from various means. Actually nothing is stopping us. Maybe all we need to do is start talking about it to get the ball rolling on this.
If anyone is interested in doing this in Asia let me know. How involved I will be depends on the location and what kind of consensus we can come to, but at the very least I am happy to help plan out logistics and share ideas on how to make it fun, low budget and bring a decent turnout.
I was originally planning to share how I might organize a Hive Fest X, but this post is getting longer than I had hoped so I will share that tomorrow or later this week.
I am welcome to playing an advisor role and if no one steps up, eventually I will have to organize something on a very small scale (think 10-30 people).
(I’m posting this in ASEAN because if I were to be heavily involved in anything outside of Japan, it would most likely be somewhere nearby, )