To me, Hive shows us a true (if early) vision of what Web3 really can be.

Beyond the media fixation on prices, silly pictures, and edge case millionaires—Hive shows us what happens when everyday humans use and contribute to decentralized technology.

• It's accessible. No fees means every choice isn't a small financial conundrum, opening the doors for people of all walks of life. Human readable wallet addresses should be the baseline standard! Hive got that right from the start.
• Community-at-the-core. People make things, and people are social (even the asocial folks are still programmed socially!) Building a space for human interaction first, at the foundation, has created a vibrant momentum of collaboration, identity, and will to progress. Online communities are a wildly underrated force of nature, in my opinion.
• Permissionless = creative playground. So much red tape is removed by the permissionless nature of Web3. It creates a new set of challenges, which is fine. Being able to build atop, alongside, or even within other projects—publicly and immutably—is a brand new digital ruleset. The power in this is crazy.
   

My Hive experience

I found the chain In January 2022, ushered in unknowingly by buying a Splinterlands Spell Book. At the time, I thought the Binance chain exemplified the space I was looking for due to nice low fees. But as soon as I discovered the characteristics of Hive, it was a no-brainer to commit most of my energy here.

In that time:

• I've helped build the Scholar & Scribe creative writing community
• Experimented with serializing fiction on-chain + rewarding readers with tokens (novella, novel already published)
• Joined way too many games and game servers (no regrets! Probably!)
• Earned over 1,000 HP in author rewards
• Have helped connect Hive with projects outside of Hive (e.g. SitkaWorld, PageDAO, The Tilt)
• Learned something new about Web3 on a near daily basis.
• Forged partnerships, made friends!

It's hard to predict the future. But if you believe in the sheer, unrelenting power of online community, then there are some very interesting times ahead for Hive.

If I had one piece of unsolicited advice for those happening by this post, it's this: don't make Hive the center of your Web3 universe. It can be home, but keep the doors and paths open for other chains and other technologies. Interoperability and hiding all the "guts" of Web3 behind a smooth UX/UI is the likely path to mass adoption.