All participants of Hive network are owners, and not users. It is quite easy to mistaken people of Hive because of the conventional norms and terms in the internet. For this reason I always try to be mindful of the fact that there is huge difference between participants on centralized platforms and decentralized networks, and try to always refer to Hive Bees to either participants or owners. But ultimately word owner describes Hive people the best. Anybody who has a Hive account is automatically the owner. Because they are the only one who have access to the account and the wallet. That is true ownership.
Yesterday I saw something very interesting tweet by 
I don't know how these numbers are calculated. But it is great to see 75.9% retention. Many other Hive Bee had similar results. User or customer retention are among biggest topics in business. Businesses spend a lot of money to increase these numbers. It is not easy to acquire new users for a platform or a game, or to acquire new customers for products or services. It is even more difficult to retain them. While gaining new users and customers may involve spending money on marketing and advertising, retention has to do with the quality of service or products, but most importantly the experiences people have with the platforms, apps, games, and businesses.
On Hive we are not users or customers, we are owners. While participation in the network is important, being a Hive does not require it. Simply having an account and holding some Hive or HBD qualifies. What do owners do? They own. Owners can be authors, curators, photographers, artists, gamers, witnesses, developers, etc. The manner in which owners participate in the network, contribute to the network, or invest in the network doesn't matter. That is true for all open decentralized networks. Such networks have open invitation to all, regardless in which way they choose to interact with the blockchain or the network. Owners are their own bosses. Nobody can dictate what they are or what they can and cannot do.
Blogging is one of the ways Hive owners can engage with the network and the community. That includes authoring content, curating, engaging in comments, sharing art or photography, etc. But this is only a one small feature of Hive. It is a super important feature that is unique to Hive blockchain. Hive blockchain has a communication platform built from the start. Not many decentralized networks can make such claim. We usually see other projects with decentralization in mind often relying on centralized platform for any kind of communication. That said, Hive is much more than a social platform.
Hive is a monetary protocol. Many if not all blockchain networks offer their cryptocurrencies. Hive does as well, but it does it in much better way in a much decentralized fashion. Decentralization is must for any blockchain network that claims to offer owners. Otherwise true ownership is not possible. Centralized systems or any system that can easily be centralized will never be able to offer true ownership. Fortunately, Hive does it best. It is decentralized, and nobody really can do anything with anybody's money. The blockchain protocol dictates the monetary policy. It is simple and easy to understand.
Sending or receiving cryptocurrencies like Hive or HBD takes couple seconds, doesn't cost any fees, and done peer-to-peer manner. The wallets are human readable, easy remember or make note of, and easy to use. As much as I like bitcoin, the simplicity of Hive wallets and all the benefits they come with are just amazing. The main coin Hive can be used for multiple purposes: as money, or as governance participation influence when staked, or as rewards distribution influence when staked, or as a long term investment, or savings account, or retirement account, business account, etc.
Hive Dollar coins as the name suggests represent the value of USD and it is a unique algorithmic coin that is backed by the Hive network itself. In recent years HBD has improved a lot, and became a top contender as a stable-coin solution. Having a separate coin that is pegged to USD has many advantages like ability to interact with something that is familiar globally and use it in decentralized fashion. Ownership of HBD is much more secure than owning USD in bank accounts. As we have recently seen there can be times when banks may fail and put depositor funds at risk due to bad business practices by banks. With HBD on Hive, Hive owners don't need to rely on others for the security of their money. Moreover, 20% APR makes HBD much better savings instrument than USD or any other fiat.
In addition to providing powerful monetary solution Hive is also changing the web and pioneering in web3 space. Hives tools that allow building communities, apps, games, businesses. Hive has all the ingredients for web3 and resources to build on web3 network. Building on Hive not only gives developers and businesses access to web3, but also empowers them as true owners. Many merchants would love to utilize such solutions, and Hive & HBD would be add value for many. If we just think about merchants and how much they can save in transfer fees, only money saving part would be of a huge benefit.
Hive owners can build communities on top of Hive, be it online communities, or offline communities and take advantage all the tools Hive provides. Hive developers can create apps, games, and solutions on top of the fast, scalable, web3 technology. Many already do. That's why Hive network continues to grow. New projects can benefit from the success of other projects within the same network. Many have done that as well. One account/wallet gives access to many different front-end websites, different games, interesting apps, awesome communities.
Hive blogging is only one aspect of Hive, important one. Let's not forget that Hive core function is much bigger. Content creation and curation are a proof of concept that has also played great role in rewards distribution and decentralization of the network. Hive probably has the best coin distribution system that as time goes by Hive only gets more decentralized. From what I have observed and experienced Hive owner retention is well and healthy and continues to grow. Numbers will only go up when it comes to Hive owner retention. Once Hive make sense, Hive owners are for a very long time. Remember, Hive ownership is not necessarily defined by participation. Participation requires time, and people sometimes have other things to do in life. But that doesn't pull them away from remaining to be Hive owners. Just yesterday, a friend reminded me I lost a bet about bitcoin price from couple years ago. Our bet was off-chain, and about something other than Hive. But we bet in Hive. We are the Hive owners.
Let me know your thoughts in the comments.
