Has Hive Failed?
In early 2017 I heard about this "social media on blockchain" platform from a crypto Youtuber that I used to watch back in the day and David Packman, a political commentator in the United States. I thought nothing of it until they mentioned a "YouTube alternative" they were both on that "paid you in crypto". That got my attention back then since I was a YouTuber myself at the time and wasn't particularly monetised on that platform yet - at least not on both of my channels.
They were both referring to Steemit and DTube of course. They must have brought quite a fair bit of new users to the platform, which included myself. I've been in this ecosystem since then creating both blog and video content. The YouTuber, and Packman, are long gone. Both either bullied off the platform by some people that didn't like what they were saying, or whatever.
Over the years there have been a number of alternative platforms like LBRY/Odysee, EOS Voice, D-blah, D-blah-blah-blah. All failed. Many large creators have been de-platformed by YouTube and other Web2 giants. Many of them have turned to Rumble and other such places and eventually learned that those aren't decentralised either.
Meanwhile on there have been several efforts made to bring Hive and even 3Speak to their attention. They've either taken one look at it and dismissed it, or have seemingly actively ignored us. I mean, Jack Dorsey, Elon Musk, Alex Jones, heck Donald Trump himself have verbally flirted with our platform but appear to be ignoring the obvious. Trump even went ahead and created his own platform which was a monumental failure. Failure after failure, these folks just kept re-inventing the wheel trying to achieve what we've been doing here for years! As I write this, Dorsey is soooooo close to inventing Hive.
The funny thing is, these other platforms, the minute they launch, they get centre stage attention! Suddenly all the big influencers are talking about them and even signing up. They get talked about non-stop (by name) and people flock to them, only for them to fail miserably.
This content creator, a large crypto influencer, has had his account wrongfully banned twice by YouTube. In this video he bemoans the lack of alternatives. He clearly describes Hive and 3Speak but just calls them "some blockchain like stuff" in a pretty dismissive manner. He then goes ahead to mention Odysee, a dead platform, by name! Do you see what the issue is? This guy is a savvy crypto content creator. You can't tell me he doesn't know about Hive or, maybe, even 3Speak. He described them quite accurately. He just couldn't bring himself to say the names.
He's not the only one I've seen do this. Another very large crypto influencer, Cryptos R US, did the same thing. He had is account taken down for no reason. When he came back he ranted about alternatives but never once mentioned Hive or 3Speak by name. I wonder why.
Talking of the video, I was close to leaving him a comment about Hive and 3Speak, just in case he hasn't heard of this platform. I didn't though. I don't know. I thought he had a point actually - about the users and viewers. Bottom line is, adoption is catastrophically low here and we don't have that many non-content-creating users that consume only. This kind of creator is a creator-only person and won't do well here without himself interacting with people. He can afford to do that on YouTube where most of the users, 99.999% in fact, don't create their own content.
The other reason why I didn't is, to be honest, I don't want to invite someone here for fear they'd just be bullied off the platform anyway.
What do you think? Has hive failed?
Peace & Love,
Adé