No more Shackles...

Spent a lot of time browsing Twitter today – it’s been pretty “lively” with the whole Trump ban thingy… my opinion of which I will reserve for the time being, but it is definitely the sentiment of most. That aspect aside, I also noticed that there was a lot of Hive buzz and promo, with a few tacky tantrums thrown into the mix by some too, lol.

For as long as I have been a member of Hive (and Steem before that), I have had a pretty loud voice in terms of encouraging the growth of the platform and all its “arms”. However, recently I made the decision to refrain from any further “public pushing” for the simple reason that, well… it makes me feel like a complete hypocrite advertising a space as something that for the large part… it is not.

When you buy a watch - on the packaging it may say “water resistant” or “water proof”. Many people confuse those two terms. To clarify, water resistant means that the watch can resist the penetration of water to some degree but not entirely. Water proof on the other hand means that the watch is impervious to water.

All day I have seen both variations of the above being thrown around on Twitter in reference to Hive. People tagging all these large accounts trying to get their attention onto Hive, which is all good and well and I genuinely have no issue with those that choose to continue punting it’s growth, but I don’t really agree with giving out false information. In my opinion, Hive is FAR from “decentralised” and “censorship free”.

By definition, decentralised means that control is in the hands of several versus one, and whilst this may be the way things are in fact physically “structured” on Hive – that is not how they are practically implemented. A decentralised system that is “controlled” by multiple individuals who are predominantly tied together by one umbilical chord somewhat defeats the intention of decentralisation in the first place. Add to that – anybody who speaks out a little too loudly on topics which that general collective finds inappropriate, get pushed into submission and silence by way of downvotes, general comment bullying and verbal slander. Hive may be partly decentralised and censorship-resistant, but it is definitely not free of corruption and dictatorship and to my mind, painting it as anything else is a lie.

Hive, I still believe – has incredible potential, but in order for that potential to EVER be any kind of reality, it is going to need a serious overhaul from the top down. Will this ever happen? Probably not – which is really sad actually because if it stays the way it is right now… I believe it will continue to die a slow death – at least the “blogging and vlogging” front-ends will at any rate. At the moment, and in my opinion… much like the rest of the world, Hive is currently “run” and dominated by the greed of a handful. Yes, there are still many amazing people on Hive and that is what I will stick around for now – that and looking at it as a “possible” long term investment should things take a positive turn… but I simply cannot bring myself to advocate for it as something “completely free of corruption” when we all know very well – it is not and most new users find that out for themselves pretty quickly too.

I would love nothing more than to see things take a positive turn, but if and until that happens, I think the time has come for me to start exploring other investment options too – ones which I feel resonate with me and that walk their talk.