I'm just killing time, and recognized long time ago, it's just a free money tap for the few.

However, you (and the guys who run VP) should ask questions:

Are there any real advantage of running VP?
What will a newcomer, potential small investor, developer will think about it?
Who will believe, it serves the common good, when since years they can't show up any results, but they still keep going on with it?

The amount they waste in Venezuela, Africa is just nuts compared to the size of Hive, and the potentially reached people's purchasing power there.

In Venezuela, Nigeria, you can run national advertising campaigns for the amount what officially they spend there.

For example:

I asked for budget friendly ads options in these 2 countries:

Estimated Cost Breakdown (Airtime Only)

1. Venezuela
   National Channels: Look at channels like VTV (Venezolana de Televisión), TVES, or regional channels with national reach. These have lower viewership than RCTV or Venevisión and thus much lower rates.

Cost per 15-second slot: On a cheap national channel, a slot could be as low as $100 - $400 USD in a low-demand time slot.

Total for 100 slots: 100 slots × $250 (avg. cost) = $25,000 USD

1. Nigeria
   Cheapest National Channels: While NTA has the widest reach, its rates can be high. A cheaper alternative could be a network like Silverbird TV or a smaller national news channel. The key is to avoid the premium entertainment channels like Africa Magic.

Cost per 15-second slot: On a national channel, expect to pay $200 - $700 USD per 15-second slot.

Total for 100 slots: 100 slots × $450 (avg. cost) = $45,000 USD

In both countries, they could sponsor (with logo on shirts, boards etc.) 1st division football teams for a complete season for $50-100k

Meantime, they spend more money for individuals, stupid useless crap, what hardly brings 50-100 new users, not to mention less than 10% of them will use Hive for at least few months.

From the developer side:

No funds for new projects, basically the result of these conferences very near to ZERO!!! You can't name overall 5 projects and 10 developers from the last 2 years, who came here, and started to build something!!!

Only way to get funding, if you know personally the "core team".

One of the funniest thing is the rally car. Hive, or who knows who exactly from Hive, officially (at least that what they said) owns 40-60% of the car, but ATTENTION!!! Hive DAO pays all the expenses for that car!!! :) :) :) not just 40-60%, but full maintanance, running cost is on Hive.

Cancelled events, like the Brazil event never seen any refunds, nobody knows what happened with the money, they asked for that, as nobody knows, how much was separated for that. only thing is sure: THEY HAVE SPENT ALL!!! :) :) :)

Unfortunately, VP makes more damage to Hive economy, and for Hive marketing than the advantages it could create.

Anybody who comes here, checks it, it will see: Hive in theory decentralized, but in practice, it is centralized, and money - better case - wasted, worse case: stolen.

Ergo, nobody will spend a cent for Hive, nobody will build anything on it!

VP is all about few dozens of very greedy guys own pocket, nothing else! But hey, it's crypto! so nothing new under the sun! 😂