Some of the Hive developers have a bi-weekly meeting which they provide updates on things they are working on. They also query each other for information while offering up suggestions.
A lot of this stuff is technical yet the calls can be very enlightening. They are first hand accounts of where the focus lies.
The latest call, which is more than a week old, contained 
There were a couple key things mentioned on the call this were interesting.
One thing is Gandalf discussed the idea of a messenger system. This would not be at the chain level since there really is no need for that. However, having that universal feature available to all Hive-based applications seemed like something that is desired by the community.
For this reason, there are some discussions going on with Rocket Chat. He said that they set up a few accounts and are testing some things. While nothing in imminent, it is something that is being looked into. There might be the possibility of getting that team to help integrating the application into the Hive ecosystem.
Certainly, a chat feature would likely aid in the engagement among community members.
What seemed very exciting was when
There are some challenges that have to be worked out. Something that was mentioned pertained to Resource Credits. How are they going to be accounted for? Since it is one procedure, it should not carry the same weight as 12 individual transactions. However, it needs to be done in a manner to prevent spamming of the blockchain.
Here is the link to the call if anyone wants to listen to it. The meeting starts at around the 10 minute market and last roughly 45 minutes.
Why bring this up?
The reason this is important is to gain an understanding of where things are going. After listening to this call, the thought came that we really need SMTs on the base layer. Having a feature like recurring payments would be terrific. However, that would only apply to HIVE. Having the ability for SMTs to set up recurring payments would be of great benefit.
Of course, there might be a way to easily program that into the smart contract layer on the second level. Nevertheless, the advantage of first layer development with SMTs is any upgrades made to the HIVE are translated to the other tokens.
Even more importantly, it is valuable to see (hear) what is being worked on. It is likely that most of the community is unaware of how much of a hindrance Steemit Inc was. They controlled the blockchain development meaning everyone else was affected.
This is no longer the case. Good or bad, this is all in the hands of the community. The other day, Blocktrades put out a basic road map showing some of the things that organization is going to be working upon.
When did we ever see anything like that out of Ned and Steemit Inc?
A feature such as recurrent payments would allow for some interaction similar to Patreon and number of other sites. While it seems like a small move, it does put Hive in a much different class of content creation. This would provide content creators and developers different options. In short, another layer could be added to their offerings, providing more exclusive content.
Seeing some of the issues developers are confronted with can be enlightening for those of us who are not into that. It seems like it is technical, a group of people hacking away at code. Get the bugs worked out and everyone is good to go.
However, these calls reveal that a lot of thought has to go into each phase of development. Even a feature like recurrent payments has many variables to consider. What happens when one does not have enough balance to make the payment? How are they notified? Does the system charge for the resource credits up front? How often can one do these? What is the maximum time span that a payment is good for?
It is easy to be negative on something when there are not a lot of overt changes taking place. The tendency, and rightly so, is that if there is no communication about development, there must be no development. This is especially true when the updates (hard forks) take place every 6 months or so.
Every once in a while it is good to get a reminder that things are occurring. There is work being done on the blockchain which will allow for greater use in the future.
Sadly, Hive is at the point where it is having to redevelop a lot of the infrastructure that was in place. Either it was outdated or spotty to begin with, both which necessitate reworking the code. Improving the core operations to provide more efficiency seeks to provide the blockchain with more resiliency, stability, and a lower cost of operation.
None of this is stuff that will draw in a million users. Nor is it very sexy in an announcement article. That said, this is very important if Hive does attract a million users.
Some insight was gained into how difficult all this is when the testnet for Facebook's Diem went live. The result was a whopping 6 transactions per second.
Does this mean that project is dead? Not by a long shot. It is likely that Facebook etal will keep working to overcome this bump in the road. They will achieve greater speeds.
Nevertheless, if a company the size of Facebook can only attain a 6 transaction per second throughput after more than 18 months of development, we can see some of the challenges that exist with all this.
In the meantime, Hive can blast out thousands of transactions per second, perhaps tens of thousands (we believe since we never came close to achieving that).
Ultimately, Hive is like an abused dog. When it first comes home from the pound, it takes a while to come out of its shell. However, back it into a corner and it has some fight to it.
Not only was the community abused, but so was the development. We are now all dealing with the residual effects of that. It is taking a while since we literally are playing catch up ball. Due to the ineffectiveness of what took place, we are probably two years behind with everything. Alas, that is the proverbial "water under the bridge". We can only go forward from here.
The Hive community proved it has fight. This might be the most vital characteristic it has. It is also something that should pay dividends down the road.
Often the difference between success and failure is simply sheer tenacity. This is something that people on Hive seem to have an abundance of.
We simply keep trudging along until the mission is complete.
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