The state of Hive /

I have been on Hive for almost 5 years now and I went through most important phases with the rest of the community.

1. Weaning off founder control.
2. Bot exploitation crack down.
3. Hive independence phase.

All those 3 phases were really tough but lead us to an establishment of core principles and philosophy. Many left, many of those that stayed that were not important players in the ecosystem clarified themselves as just that.
We are now at a point in time where uncertainty in Hive future, price speculation aside, is basically nonexistent.
Hive has hit a maturity phase that only Bitcoin and very few others can claim.

I have always been a proponent of the claim that the community determines the future of a platform. That its power can exceed the hold of whales on a platform.
During early Steem days the value of your account determined your say in important issues. Today, the value of your account exceeds only its monetary value.

You, as a brand in the "Hive nation" will always remain the X factor.

@theycallmedan called this "social capital". This is something I found extremely compelling years ago in one of his video monologues and is one of the topics we cover in the "Freechain" documentary. It was one of the question we asked all the individuals interviewed and even those that might not have thought about it before, gave really interesting answers. Many of them, at the point of answering, realizing the truth of its presence on Hive. Its probably the favorite question I wrote.

Your engagement, the support you can muster, the respect you can claim for yourself on this platform creates a paradigm where your human value can rival monetary fact in many ways.

If we observe Hive as a society of people and accept that an attack on a society (a nation) is what builds patriotism and unity then we can say that we went through that event with the Steem/Hive split. Just like the Russian war of conquest is in a way a further nation building event for Ukraine, we can claim the similar happened for Hive.
This only as a metaphor. I dont want to diminish in any way the absolute tragedy of the ongoing war or claim there is any equivalence in gravity whatsoever between these two events.

Imagine some examples like LUNA or XRP. Founders exercise near absolute control over those chains and once they are under attack, the whole platform is vulnerable.
Imagine what happens to TRON if Justin Sun leaves or gets prosecuted?
Do you think the platform lives on in prosperity? Or does it crumble when investors that put all hopes in one man, his "expertise" and reputation, finally realize that a chain cant live off of a cult of personality.
Hive survived because for a long time Ned Scott, in his lack of commitment, unintentionally, forced the community to take over.

A child that has its hand held too long, takes much longer to learn how to walk.

In his negligence Ned actually helped us. Not because he was thinking about our wellbeing, he was rather an equivalent of a shitty father.

@arcange had a great closing remark during #Hivefest. If I tried to quote him id probably butcher his words.
But it basically touched upon the fact that the attendees went from viewing Hive (Steem at the time) on first Hivefest from a investment perspective. Then that evolved into observing it from a feature perspective. Ending it in Amsterdam from a unity perspective.
He called Hive "Family".
I would use a broader word. "Society".
A society thats united through a sense of belonging, ideologically in tune and with an almost collective understanding of where its going.