Yet because of the big 6's need to be exactly like each other to compete in the market, we've all been left the consequence of sameness and features of all of their competitors imitated in order to dominate our attention spans.

I've been having similar thoughts for a while. Those platforms are like Victorinox knifes - overloaded with functions, but none of the tools are good enough to really use. Seriously, who'd use the scissors on a pen knife, if they knew about real scissors?

This feels like the old internet.

Yes! Thanks for putting my feeling into words! The signal-to-noise ratio is so much better here than on FB and the Bird Place. When i read the words "old internet" I realized what feels so good about Hive: it reminds me of calling up BBS's or joining web forums, taking part in discussions on anything from Star Trek to cooking, where there seldom were any troll comments or spam.

One thing I recall about the BBSs I frequented is that since they usually only had one or two phone lines, they didn't want someone to just call in and stay all day, keeping everybody else from getting in, so people were disconnected after reaching 10-15 minutes, and then not allowed in again until next day. But by adding content - posting in the forums, uploading texts and freeware apps etc - one could earn extra minutes. Kind of like how Hive works: by posting and interacting with others one earns HP which allows one to interact even more!