Like you, I've never taken to the idea that Hive should be some boutique operation, an exclusive country club where the big players are fawned over by an adoring (but small) group of sycophants. That only benefits those who are doing just fine right now thank you very much, and don't want to open things up and let anyone else have a nibble at the buffet table (the fact that they see it that way is part of the reason we're seeing what we are right now).

I've been here since the Steemit days in 2016 and have seen it all.

This is the money quote right here:

It’s the loyal community members who keep showing up, posting, commenting, curating, onboarding, and building… even when it’s not trendy to do so. It’s the people who treat Hive like a place, not just a farm.

That pretty much described me until earlier this year when I decided to optimize opportunities outside of Hive rather than going for daily post for a year award that I started on January 1st. 30 days of continuous posting proved that contributing steady, thoughtful, posts and meaningful comments made no difference unless you were part of the "in" crowd, which I've absolutely never been even more so since the split with Steemit happened.

I will never forget seeing some people having an exchange and using the phrase "no upvotes, no comments, just trailvotes." They were discussing whether to comment on a post. They were talking about my account... As if there was some sort of official policy somewhere to starve my account of support, why? I don't know. I'd been tipped off to the possibility of something like this "Do-Not-Support" 'List' a few years ago and had refused to believe that such a self-defeating operation was true. But after digging around, it was apparant that nothing was ever going to change. So I took advantage of the welcoming opportunity in front of me and have been optimizing my content outside of Hive, that's why you haven't been seeing as much of me this year. But I still pop in from time to time to see if sanity has returned. If the massive drop in the token price, the shuttering of operations and the exodus of longtime builders hasn't woken the elite country club members up then nothing will. But I'll always be proud that I hung around and kept building when the token price slipped while others bailed.

So I'm now a whale elsewhere (why beat my head against a brick wall here, right?), and it feels good to finally be included and rewarded for my content contributions. I didn't know that the token had taken this big drop in the price, but decided to drop by and share a post regardless of the price.

The loss of ionomy last year hit me just as I was starting to buy the $HIVE token again. If I had a huge stake, I'd be rewarding just those people you talked about. You know, the ones like me who hung around through thick and thin and kept building, believing that Hive should be much bigger.

But like a plant which provides oxygen which nourishes us all, those loyal Hivians need regular watering to keep them healthy and strong while building community. I still have hope and don't believe that it's too late to turn this ship around. Those with stake need to start watering and fertilizing more than the handful of their friends plants and need to engage in wide-scale agriculture. Reach out beyond your base and support those who've been loyal seedlings for years and watch the garden grow.