I just read an excellent article by slobberchops titled Are you on HIVE to Invest or to Milk the Cash Cow?. It highlights his thoughts on what motivates people here on Hive, and whether they are here to build (long term) ,or just drop by for quick rewards and then cash out.
As I write this, I'm exhausted, but his post inspired me to write about my own situation after 7+ years here dating back to the early days of good old Steemit.
I won't go over again about my situation caring for an ill elderly relative, if you've read my stuff, you know about that. Right now I'm away from Hive as I catch up on writing for a platform that's MUCH more rewarding for me to contribute to than it is here, and that's partially based on stake (or my lack thereof here).
Stake matters.
I totally get it.
Who in the hell would upvote a post of mine with only 377 HP? Not much return in it for them as opposed to upvoting someone with 20K HP, right? Of course having the Bitcoin that I sent to ionomy vanish into the ether a few months ago (it was intended to grow my HP), didn't do a whole lot to make me want to trust sending anything here after that. Had that transfer gone through, I would have continued to send more to boost this account.
So with a small stake and no way to grow it faster to help attract more support, I was left with the option of continuing to grind away for pennies per post, or to split my time on other platforms where I'm a whale of sorts, and that's what I'm doing.
I pore over my writing on Hive as the handful of irregular readers know. May posts can take up to 6 hours to write, proofread and edit, since I don't cheat by copying others work or tell AI to write my posts for me.
So I "tick tock" back and forth, to whittle down my writing outside of Hive, popping back in from time to time until I catch up. That's what I'm doing now; way behind, and racing to catch up.
But even though I'm tired (and heading off to bed as soon as I'm done with this "rushed" post, Slobberchops post struck a chord with me and I had to put pen to digital paper.
Not everyone who dips out is gone. Some of us are doing other things.
I do agree that we need more content consumers to balance the number of content creators. That's spot on.
However, my experience (in early 2023, I think? Or was it 22?) of writing 500 comments in 10 days, left me with sore hands and not the engagement I expected for the work that I put in.
So there's that.
The 'Giant Sucking Sound' on Hive
I think that those with stake (who care about the platform as I do), need to step out from time to time and begin supporting others OUTSIDE OF THEIR GROUP OF FRIENDS THAT THEY UPVOTE REGULARLY, and help lift those up who truly give a shit about Hive.
You know who they are.
Stop supporting people who see Hive as their "job" and only use it like that 'Giant sucking sound' that Ross Perot spoke about when he ran for President in 1992, take a look:
Those of you with decent stake, are you contributing to that "Giant Sucking Sound" of resources being bled out of Hive by people who have no intention of building this place long-term? No 'Owners Mindset' just dip in, grab the tokens and split? That's like exporting jobs overseas, just as Ross Perot warned us about. It might benefit you in the short-term, but it hollows out your economy and robs you of your future.
If you care about Hive,
Do something about it...
Till next time.