Congrats on five years! It has, indeed, been quite a journey for some of us.

Yeah, I remember Weedcash! I occasionally have wondered what happened there... it seemed very timely, given the whole emergence of the industry.

I hate to say it, but Hive's communities have a root issue that runs extremely deep, and hence the tribalism. The vast majority of people "came for the rewards," and so they are extremely proprietary and protective of their few square inches of turf. Hard to work with. It's not the system that's flawed, so much as the mindset of those drawn to such a system. Money 1 — Idealism 0

If we look at the successes within the Hive ecosystem... starting with Splinterlands... I think Hivelist is your best greatest bet. Splinterlands runs and grows because so much is focused on gameplay and related, and the "rewards" are a consequence, rather than "the product," itself. The second thing they have is a "bridge" to the external fiat world... it remains the only dApp (to my knowledge) where you can use PayPal or a debit card to go straight from a bank account to getting and funding a Hive account.

Hivelist has shades of the same thing going, because shopping and using marketplaces is ultimately something people do every day without being something "foreign" or technical, like blockchain/crypto. Again, the blockchain/crypto aspects fade into the background below the relatively mundane activity of commerce.

Web3 is a great concept, but it has to be pitched in "Web 2-ish" terms in order to get legs with regular folks out there. Again, just my opinion...

Anyway, happy Hiveversary to you!