I spend last year rebuilding an old Irish pub that had been abandoned for the past twenty years. The whole place was a wreck from being closed up but the damage didn't all come from having the doors shut. It came from having the wrong team running the place.
By all accounts and this was well before my time the pub was owned by the same family. Maisey's it used to be called as while the husband owned the pub. She was the power behind it's success. They had it for their whole lives and ran it very well. So well that they bought up a lot of land in the area from it's profits.
They had it in great condition, had a shop alongside it and were the right people for the job. When they were too old to keep at it every day the pub went to the next generation.
As the old saying goes.
First generation builds it.
Second generation runs it.
Third generation ruins it.
And this case was no different. The next generation never bothered to work at running it. The place went downhill and stopped being profitable. Over time it seems that the son got into difficulties and sold it off to pay debts.
In the meantime the pub was bought and leased out but none o them took ownership of the pub and it kept going downhill. The owner was only in it for a profit and the renters all took it short term and took as much as they could from it.
Sound a bit familiar??
Think STEEM. Then Hive.
A great project at the start. The builders left, the next generation fought over the spoils and everybody extracted what they could from it. then it kept falling further and further downhill as nobody had ownership or wanted to make it successful.
Now we have Hive. Better but still not moving as well as it should be. The foundations are being built and some people are using that to take charge of their own projects.
Anyway. This pub came up for sale last year and the family that sold it wanted to buy it back again. In most cases people wouldn't have liked to get involved but it was well known that they wouldn't do much with the pub only paint it up and try to extract a bit more profit from it. Instead another local man managed to buy the project and tore it down to the walls.
From the foundation he took a team and build it to purpose. Added B&B rooms upstairs. Nice grounds outside. Modern utilities. A new pub downstairs and an extension out the back. An iconic fully restored and upgraded pub from the one that he bought. He took what was good about the old building and built it for what was needed to create a thriving business instead of just adding a layer of paint and doing the same old thing over again that has been proven not to work.
It was the right man for the right project and it is thriving right now. The pub, cafe and B&B are all doing very well.
If the pub had just been reopened as it was then it would only be losing money right now.
In this case, the LEO team to build a social media site.
It took a while to get to this stage but I'm getting more and more excited by what I am seeing. Their latest post here is a massive announcement but one that could really add layers to their new website.
/@@leofinance/introducing-hive-communities-on-leofinance-want-to-have-your-own-threads-ui
Finally we are going to see what could have been years ago with STEEM and then Hive.
Leo are building what it should have been with all of the features that people spent years begging the STEEM developers for.
- Easy onboarding.
- Content discovery.
- Search menu.
- Communities.
- Ad revenue.
- User experience.
STEEM was a top 5 crypto in the early days. It was a great project with huge potential that was badly mismanaged. The developers kept trying to add new features but had no business acumen whatsoever. Everybody and their dog could see these glaring issues but nobody was willing to make it happen. They said it wasn't important.
I watched as users left in ones and in hundreds over time as nothing changed and users got fed up with how the system was operating. The markets effect users as well but if a project is built to purpose like reddit or twitter then people will use it without any rewards. Wit rewards it should be a no brainer.
Hive is a much better place in terms of what is happening. The core developers are working to improve the overall system. People are putting in efforts to market and improve the chain.
However outside of these people trying their best to build. We are 7 years into the project and still don't have instant accounts for new users. Still don't have good content discovery. Still don't have external revenue, still are losing a huge number of users.
Blocktrades is building out the infrastructure so it's up to the apps now if they can build successful projects. Splinterlands has shown that it can be done and now LEO are going to give it their best shot.
They have taken a hive community that wasn't working in the same old form. Instead of slapping on some new paint like sportstalk or splintertalk they cut it back to the foundations. Now they are building it back up to suit a purpose.
They are adding in everything that we have been crying out for and personally I think that it's going to be huge. The right team is building now and building the features that we needed to see. The features that are actually important to users. They don't care how technical it is. They want to log in and go.
Other teams have had plenty of time to do the same and plenty of funding in some cases but now we will see if it can be done right.
Fun times ahead.