It has improved, but terminology and obscure error messages do not help. I'm not sure the issue is with crypto itself, but designing a good user interface is hard. The key system is intended to improve security, but many will not understand it. As I've said elsewhere, I rarely use my keys as I have them in Keychain.

People are building on it anyway. I've just played with some scripts using Python and libraries that give access. I wrote a bot in a few lines.

There's a mixture of content here. Some people I enjoy include:

• @katharsisdrill: Danish writer, artist, musician.
• @sidekickmatt: US Superhero comics.
• @paolobeneforti and @silviabeneforti: Italian artists
• @stickupboys : Brighton music collective

I know you know @lloyddavis, but he is less active here lately. You may know @dickturpin who will have his own criticisms of Hive.

I've been bitten too many times by centralised social media (Google!). The Fediverse is better, but can also be hard to understand. I am depending on someone to host my account there. Hive is decentralised and will run as long as there are some witnesses (currently dozens active) and there are multiple front end sites and apps. I consider Steemit to be compromised and so will not use it again. I do look in to see how bad it is.

I have seen plenty of crypto-scepticism (and stronger views) on Mastodon and elsewhere in the open source world. I do agree with some of the points around energy usage and 'rug-pulls' that do not seem to apply to Hive.

Isn't it good to have options?

Hive also has !BEER ;)