If you haven't heard about DESO yet, let's see how the markets were doing yesterday:
Ouch, everybody got rekted!
Oh, I see, a coin went with a 40% increase:
Holly Molly
What is DESO?
Good question! For this, we need to first talk about Nader AL-Naji a.k.a Diamondhands, the creator of Bitclout and the founder of Basis, a stable coin startup that had to shut down in 2018, and give back (partially) 133 million to his investors.
This time around Nader managed to find 200 million to fund his new project, with big venture capital names, in the like of Andreessen Horowitz (a16z), Sequoia, Social Capital, TQ Ventures, Coinbase Ventures, Winklevoss Capital, Polychain Capital, Pantera Capital, and Arrington Capital. Other investors include Blockchange Ventures, Distributed Global, Blockchain.com Ventures, Hack Ventures, and Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
DESO seems to be pretty much a decentralized social network, with a token, and apps based on his blockchain. Sounds familiar?
So, why is it so good for us?
Because like any other projects, they don't have what we currently have, and it will benefit us in the long run. Listen, what does make a strong community? Is it about money? Is it about who is backing you up?
Truth is, I've been observing this place for quite a while now, and something happened in the last year:
People started really to work their butt off to create excellent content just taylor-made for HIVE, which is a thing that wasn't always the case in the past, if you remember a time when everybody was using bots to boost their upvotes for example, and generic content is now frowned upon, the same can be said about comments, you cannot just get away with mindless shit anymore.
Yes, you still have people making a substantial pay-out with a few words, but what we can't quantify now, is all the hours discussed on Discord with other users, or being here on HIVE engaging in comment sections, so one would argue that some content creators get more rewarded for what they bring to the platform, their own communities, and to other users. It's a full time job, and deserves a proportional pay-out.
Don't get me started on curators, that have been doing a consistent job and the time of "hit and miss" posts are a distant memory, I am not the type to lick someone's boot, but we should acknowledge the effort in recent years. I am really proud to post on this blockchain, and to see my content up there, with really well produced posts.
It took years of getting it wrong, for me too by the way, I had no idea how to adapt my content to this audience, and it took me 3 years to realize that I cannot give here what I give on Youtube, or Instagram, I had to go dig deeper, and become a writer, maybe not the best writer, but it's not what matters.
What matters is that we might have managed to revert the impersonal social interactions that social medias giants have created, to something more personal, almost tribal. Each groups interconect with one another and create a microcosm.
And that's maybe a miracle at play here, a coworking environment, where we all benefit from each other's excellence, and producing a blueprint of a new way to consume and produce content, supporting one another.
As I was mentioning in a recent comment, you cannot just post something on HIVE and expect instant success, no matter who you are, it will take time to find your audience, and de facto, you will have to interact with people, there is no way around this.
The line between creator, user, investor, has been blurred, and it's a revolutionary thing to witness, it's a cycle that really compliments each other well, a creator makes some art, another user feels touched by it, upvotes it, the creator now is compelled to check the user's blog, found out he also loves craft beer, and they become best buddy for life. One will always enjoy the company of the others, and vice-versa. There is no pedestal here, no one better than someone else, just like minded people with pieces of their lives to share, having a very human experience.
I've always hated the pompous aspect of other "Social Medias" out there, where your voice get drowned in a miasma of other voices, where subscribers can be bought, where you will never get an answer from a creator or influencer because "who are you anyway?". As much as some might see us as "purists", by creating this hybrid that is neither a social media nor a forum, we have ensured its sanctity, and make sure that no one can come and highjack the attention, the votes, all the work that has been done prior.
DESO has been now in beta for 6 months, and we know that it takes few years for social blockchain to "fine tune" its eco-system, rest assured that another competitor is good for us, it will be a good test to see in the long run, if we have indeed created something special, or if it can be reciprocated with 200 millions. I personally enjoy to hear about similar projects, because it does mean that the mindsets are slowly evolving, and we will all benefits from it.
What's your thoughts guys?
Ed