So I am in the process of stepping up my focus into the growth of Hive as a whole and decided to take a look at the state of onboarding across Hive and also any referral systems. I was surprised to find it is both way more complicated and limited than I expected. In fact, none of the main dapps I looked at could provide me with a free account at present (for various reasons).
Hive.blog presents me with a variety of different options for providers of Hive accounts when I click the 'signup' button. Setting aside that this is confusing for new users - I will just focus on the first three 'free' options as these are what most people will use.
So.. I looked at these options:
I first looked at Inleo because I heard they have a referral system that I hadn't used before. Their settings page gives me a referral link that I can give to other people, but there is no mention of how the referral programme works.
At first I visited the referral link without logging out and found that the page I wash shown had a large image missing at the top - it seemed like an early version of the referral page that had since been forgotten about but not removed from sight when viewed as a logged in user. It might be better to create a custom page there that informs logged in users of more details about the referral system or just says 'log out to see this page' etc.
I logged out and revisited the referral page and was presented with three options -
In all three cases I found that I couldn't click the 'continue' button due to browser errors (in Firefox on Windows). I logged these issues as feedback in inleo.
So I gave up with Inleo at that point.
Update: I was asked to try a different browser. I tried Brave and then was able to proceed further in to the process, however, I received an error after typing in the SMS code I was sent and couldn't complete the signup process:
Error authorizing user to firebase
Maybe 
I tried to create a free account through Ecency, but after I entered my cellphone number, the system blocked me from creating one - saying:
Already created an account?! Only one account per person/IP is allowed.
I wasn't clear if the issue was from my email or my phone number though. My IP address here is dynamic, so this can't be an issue caused by my IP as suggested.
I then tried to use their paid option but it requires me to use their app and I presume to be logged in, so I don't think this is a valid option for new users.
I can understand that there is a need to prevent bots and scammers from getting lots of free accounts, it's a shame there isn't a more foolproof option to achieve that on Ecency at this time.
Any comments from 
Similar to Ecency, I tried to create a free account through D.Buzz, but after I entered my cellphone number, the system blocked me from creating one - saying:
Your phone number was already used for account creation.
Maybe these apps are sharing cellphone numbers? I don't recall creating an account previously through D.Buzz, but maybe.
Any comment from 
...
I then looked at PeakD too..
PeakD uses Hiveonboard.com for free account creation.
Unfortunately, when I completed the 'Start finding your account name' lookup on the PeakD site, before being sent to Hiveonboard.com, the system failed with an error:
I used a different browser and was then able to look up a user name and be forwarded on to Hiveonboard.com.
I attempted to create the account on HiveOnboard and was then informed that the system had run out of account creation tokens, so I couldn't create an account!
Maybe 
...
Finally I looked at 3Speak...
3Speak has a 'Get Hive Account' option in the main navigation when I am logged in, however, after completing the signup form to create a new account, the page just refreshed and nothing happened.
I signed out and then tried the signup process again and got exactly the same result. No emails were sent to me and no account was created.
Maybe 
Surprisingly, all of the signup processes are either buggy or totally broken.
Some of these issues seem to have been due to me already being a Hive user, but there was a lack of explanation in all the cases as to what was taking place and what I could do to change the situation in order to create a new account. Even when paid options were presented as an alternative, there was a lack of detailed explanation in clear language.
Several of the signup processes are just completely broken.
I wasn't able to use any kind of referral system either.
So... It's not really surprising in the slightest that we have a dwindling userbase.
Wishing you well,
Ura Soul
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