Four Years on Hive... Can I Get a Whoop Whoop 🍰🍻

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Once Upon a Time there was Blockchain!

I've been posting on steem/hive since August 2017 and my crypto story is similar to many people's out there.

Before joining hive I purchased my first pot of bitcoin in early 2017 after learning that a friend had done very well investing a portion of his inheritance in crypto. Like many, I started with the idea of simply hodling and cashing out when it hit a certain fiat value.

But... the best-laid plans of mice and men oft go astray.

Over the next 4 years I fell down the crypto rabbit hole developing a fascination with the potential utility of various blockchain projects. I lost some $ on scammy ICO projects, and I gained some $ betting on decent blockchain projects, but the one consistent throughout the whole time has been my involvement with hive.

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Have You Met Hive?

I'm a freelance writer outside of Hive, and part of what interests me personally about crypto is the potential of blockchain technology to empower creative proffesionals in new ways through digital ownership of their work.

We live in a world where big business increasingly tries to marginalize people, a world where Facebook and Google collects demographics on 90% of the world's population, then sells that information to advertisers.

In the digital realm of web 2.0 you have no sovereignty over your information, no true ownership of any content you put out there as the authorities can order server side shut down of websites etc. Beyond those issues of censorship there is also the question of the economy of attention. Instagram, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube all make billions of dollars/year from their user's attention, comments, likes and content.

This is where hive offers such an interesting utility prospect in terms of owning your channel's content, influencing monetization through behavior/peer review and removing censorship.

In the wider world view Hive solves a few key problems that perpetuate digital tech wealth monopolies, but there are still massive wealth gaps on hive and many whales who's influence is largely due to shady distribution methods in the early days of the steem blockchain.

I would argue that the balance is slowly redressing itself, with a notable uber-troll powering down since hive forked from steem... and as far as I'm concerned, good riddance.

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A welcome move from the top Hive holders toward not supporting this type of destructive user has made hive a less intimidating place.

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I remember a time when people worried daily about having their account nuked on a whim by Hive's main mega-troll.

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With the recent hardfork leveling the playing field a bit by flattening the curation window to 24 hours, it has become more likely that well made content will be discovered and rewarded.

Hive is maturing along with the wider blockchain industry, and from what I can see curation is slowly erring toward a more even spread of rewards based on proof of brain.

In the long term I think Hive could benefit from finding a specific niche, or perhaps catering to a group of niches with dedicated communities using the hive blockchain as the driving force behind the economy of their own content specific sites. I'm not 100% sure about these things, and they've undoubtedly been raised by people before. I stepped away from being involved in the serious hive conversations a while ago simply because they're so time consuming.

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Putting My Own Stamp on Hive

So much goes on behind the scenes on hive that it is difficult for new users to understand how it all works. Although I dig Hive, or I wouldn't be here, it says a lot that most people can't figure out how to progress and find their community without joining discord.

We work with the tools at our disposal, but to my mind there should be a central dedicated chat service and landing place for hive, somewhere where new users are directed to communities based on their interests. Perhaps this exists and I have just missed the conversation 😂

I'm not able to dedicate any more time behind the scenes than I already have as real life issues have taken all my time, but in the past I was one of those busy bees who build each individual cell that makes up the hive.

  • In late 2017 I joined curie as a curator and worked about 20 hours/week helping to find/reward posts from new users for the best part of two years.

  • In 2018-2019 I ran a creative writing workshop for the Promo-mentors discord community spending roughly 10 hours/week offering editorial services and tutoring some second language English writer's to help them improve their craft.

  • Also in 2018 I ran a weekly segment on the whaleshares (prior to their fork) discord radio show for 6 months called literary corner. In the show I interviewed the most talented poets and fiction writers on hive/steem at the time.

  • In 2019 I joined the @sndbox creative incubator and worked as part of a team building the @projectgiving charity which helped fund a community/environmental project in Tanzania.

  • In 2020 I started @theinkwell creative writing community with @stormlight24, designing the community media, writing creative prompts and community initiatives for 6 months until I had to facilitate handover to new management due to my own health issues, and a family member getting cancer at the beginning of the pandemic. The Ink Well remains an active and vibrant writing community thanks to the efforts of @jayna, @agmoore and @gracielaacevedo who I want to thank from the bottom of my heart.

There is a tone of other stuff I spent my time on when Hive was still Steem, but I've done enough ego stroking for one day 😂

Future Writing Goals and Hive Content

This is a hard thing to quantify... I have been struggling with chronic health issues for a long time now which have only got worse as the years have passed. I stepped back from writing on hive in 2020 as the extra work of running the ink well and trying to write content was contributing to my health problems.

These problems have not gone away, but as I no longer do any behind the scenes work the overall strain is less and I'm going to try to post three times a week in a more structured way.

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Mondays Poetry - Wednesdays political/comedy rant - Fridays photography post.

IRL considerations always have to come first. I came very close to breaking the bank and putting myself in financial dire straights by focusing on behind the scenes community building in the early part of 2020.

I'm currently focusing on submitting short stories (fiction) to literary, and genre specific, mainstream magazines to increase my reputation as a writer. This is the main reason why I'm not publishing any fiction on hive anymore as I just don't have the time between editing and other jobs.

If you'd like to check out some of the fiction I've written on hive in the past please check out this catalogue post I made a few months ago.

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I'd like to say a massive thank you to all the people who have helped and supported me over the years.

I'm going to celebrate my Hive 4th birthday tonight with a piece of cake 🍰 and a few beers 🍻

Here's to many more years entertaining people on the Hive blockchain 😃

All media in this post is either creative commons license, linked below picture, or designed by me using GIMP photo editor. If you have enjoyed this celebration post, please check out my homepage @raj808 for similar content. Thank you.

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