Not another Hive post....
Well, it is and it isn't, but it could be, if you wanted it to be. However, this is more of an observation or perhaps a realization that came to me today as I was answering a comment about Hive as a consumer space in comparison to the other platforms.
Don't look at my wife
At least the centralized platforms I have been on haven't been about creating content for a long time, rather, they are platforms for consuming content. And what is consumed tends to be short-form, surface level, headline filler. The majority of users don't add anything there of themselves that can be judged, they just voyeuristically observe, judging.
Hive is different in this regard, because it is more personal and community orientated in the sense that there is an economy that incentivizes interaction, not just consumption. Active people who spend their time creating, tend not to be people who spend a lot of time consuming, which makes creators less valuable on the centralized platforms.
They are like models to hang the clothes on and while they get paid, the real value of them is that consumers will spend their attention looking, soaking in all of the advertisements, nudged to buy what they don't need. The platforms are like point of sale candy at the register, you might have gone in for some apples, but you are presented a chocolate bar, just when you are hungry and have your wallet out.
You didn't mean to look.
But once you did...
Platforms like Twitter, fed by whatever polarized media topics are relevant on the day, leverage outrage and drama to grab the attention of people who for the most part, aren't actually going to add their voice into the fray. Most are there viewing, or perhaps, aren't there at all.
This is an interesting chart from a Pew research in 2021:
This incudes retweets and quotes etc.
Look at the "likes" and "retweets" received.
That is telling and what it tells, is the majority of the content isn't engaging the audience at all. Remember these are averages, so when you see this:
It skews the averages.
That one post from Elon Musk has as many likes as what 6,870 of the average of the top 25 posters gets in a month, out of their average 446,550 posts per month. How much visibility are the average users really getting for their effort and, what are they getting in return for it.
How many are bots?
My last post from yesterday, has more engagement and support than the average month of the most active users on Twitter, and it is almost 2000 words long. People spent 10 minutes reading it (or skimming it) and then, spent however long commenting on it - not with some pithy comment looking to point score, but with thought and intention, adding their voice to the discussion.
Why the fuck would anyone be on Twitter?
Voyeurs.
Essentially, the 25% are Twitter, with the 75% nearly pure voyeurs and I would suspect, that there is quite a curve in that 25% too, where there is a big difference between the top 1% of tweeters in volume, and the bottom of the top quarter. It is a content circlejerk, essentially the same group of people and bots, amplifying the voices of themselves.
That is social media, right?
Not really. It isn't social at all, but it is media. While people read the news for the articles, the newspaper doesn't create the news to share news information. Similar to the clothes hanger models, the stories are there to attract attention for the real purpose, ad revenue. That is how they make their money. Social media does this too, where they have cleverly convinced some of us that our voice should be heard, given us a platform, used algorithms to set up controversy and opposition, all to create juicy drama that makes us want to support or attack one side of the argument.
Just to sell advertising space and network potential.
They are corporations and have no moral code, other than maximization of shareholder wealth. Their user base's resistance is impaired, conditioned to participate and pick a side on every topic, whether it is of personal importance or not, causing our immune system to fight itself, like an auto-immune disease.
Social media isn't improving community, it is destroying it en masse, as it is about joining forces with strangers against a narrow cause, regardless of the complexity or nuances involved. It is simplifying every discussion and person into a homogenous mass that shifts opinions and reforms across polarized lines, making every argument, binary.
From what I have seen, there is no actual discussion and minds are not being changed, they are just people pitted against each other looking to score points in the system. And, those points have no value, other than getting that little bit of a kick from getting a like or feeling like they scored a point by hurting someone's feelings - dopamine addicts.
Hive isn't like that. There is actual discussions that happen under the posts and minds can be changed, at least over time. Discussions can go on for years on a topic, but along the way, there is some consistency in the participants, so the discussions, even the arguments, are between people in relationships - often like grumpy old men who have been arguing about everything for the last 70 years.
A community.
Not a community of random people collected for a moment, like a gigantic one-night stand. But a group of people who get to know each other over time and through many perspectives. On Hive, people share of themselves, they give their experience through their content and opinions on various topics, and they change over time, as their understanding changes.
Observe for long enough and see how people evolve here.
It isn't always for the betterment of the community or themselves, as there are plenty of drama-filled dummyspits, but it does change people on average, for the better.
And this is the realization that I came to today - that I like Hive because people are incentivized to participate and be part of the discussion, not just sit back and soak in the discussion passively. It is not that people have to read or comment on every post they see, but enough people come back often enough to engage with the platform. If people realized how much "life value" there is on Hive by actually participating here, like so many people who are already here, their activity would drop off a cliff on the other platforms and their lives would be better for it.
Here, content creators are valued for the experience they provide through their content. And consumers aren't valued because of the ad revenue they bring, but for the experiences they share. Hive doesn't have a hidden agenda that uses manipulation techniques to influence users for its own gain. It is an open community with no set preferences, other than how the community behaves. That is,
How we behave.
Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]
