Often we come across people talking about Hive without realizing it. In this situation, we have an individual who was describing the value of a network. It was in reference to Reddit and what is taking place with that social media platform.
For those who are not aware, there is a move by the owner of Reddit to prepare for an IPO. The idea is to take the company public and cash out. This is a common practice so nothing really novel here.
What is interesting is the steps being taken. The platform raised fees, is not allowing users to delete data, and, according to charges in the video are breaking the law.
When going through this video, the idea of Web 3.0 and Hive kept coming to mind.
Where The Value Resides
In this video, the speaker really dives into the value of Reddit. By this, we are not referring to the valuation. Instead, he is opining of what makes a social media network successful. This is something that we discuss quite frequently but the mainstream really doesn't cover it.
Here is the video. It is worth the time to go through it.
Isn't that interesting?
The company is trying to keep people from erasing their data. What is the reason? Because that is what has value. It is the database that was accrued over all those years.
That is exactly what we say about Hive. The fact we are dealing with a decentralized, immutable database has value on the open market.
Another interesting aspect to this discussion is the fact the members are the ones who provide said data. The company has no value without the users. On Hive we use the term "community" but we are talking about the same thing.
Essentially, this is exemplifying the difference between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0.
Of course, when (if) Reddit goes public, will the users get anything for their years of contribution growing the business? Of course not. Sure they are free to buy the stock once it hits the open market but that is all.
The owner and venture capital providers will likely cash out in a big way while the ones who provide the value get nothing financially.
Typical Web 2.0.
The Backlash
Users are now revolting. There is backlash against Reddit trying to destroy its value. This is in the form of users trying to delete accounts and remove said data from their database.
We can see the dance taking place as the company is trying to stop this. Here we also see another important factor raised: Silicon Valley tech companies believe the data is theirs. It is not in their thought process that it belongs to the user. After all, they built the platform and captured it all.
Obviously, this is a debate outside the scope of this article. The main point is Web 3.0 ends this debate since the data is housed on a blockchain. It is a situation where the data, if decentralized, is not owned by anyone. People posting place it on a public forum that resides on many different servers around the world. These are all controlled by uncorrelated people.
Will the backlash be effective. This is hard to guess. A more important question is whether this will get people to start thinking about alternatives? This is not likely the case since we know most tend to fall into the same behavior.
Nevertheless, this is a talking point for Web 3.0. If this battle continues for a while, it will be one for social media history. That means we can see this as an example of what needs to be avoided.
Real world examples are vital to the cause we are putting forth. Often, before people will switch, they have to realize they are in pain. The fact that the users built the value for Reddit and now are being left dry should be eye opening. Of course, this took place with every social media company out there. Elon Musk is going to get richer the more Twitter develops. Users do not seem to care.
For the moment, the ones on Reddit do. They are the first who might be awakening to what is truly taking place.
Building Hive
While it would be great to bring over 500,000 users from Reddit immediately, Hive simply has to keep building. This seems like a boring process but it is the case.
Each post that is on Web 3.0 is one removed from the traditional social media sites. This applies to Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter. If we can capture even a couple users from Reddit, that is a minor shift.
This is a marathon. Reddit will likely go public with a market capitalization in the billions. Our task is to keep building the value of Hive.
How is this done? As pointed out in the video, it is the data that is placed on-chain. That is the real value that makes social media companies worth what they are. To achieve this, we need to present userbase active.
Situations like this exemplify the need for Web 3.0. And, to me, Hive is at the foundation of this.
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