Is Hive ready for an application to have 1 million regular users? If not, this is something that we have to be prepared for.
It obviously sounds ludicrous considering where the numbers stand now. We do have to believe, however, this will not always be the case.
Most look at Hive and see something that is niche. A small blogging community that is ranked way down on Coingecko is as far as most see. This causes them to miss the entire story of what is taking place here.
There is no doubt the adoption of Web 3.0 is stuck in neutral. We have a lot of entities vying for the title. The challenge is few are truly decentralized. At the same time, we have to realize that much of what is touted as such as really nothing more than what went before. Web 3.0 simply because a marketing term.
Hive is different. We do have a decentralized base layer. This means that anyone implementing the account management system is going to be providing to account ownership. It is a core tenet of the new Internet.
So how can we think about the position we presently occupy and 1 million users? Here is where development and building occur.
1 Million Can Happen Quickly
Did you see how quickly GPTChat took off? It went from non-existent to 1 million users in 5 days. This is how quickly things can move in the digital world.
How many times over the past 20 years did we see an application go from nothing to 50 million users in just a few months? Instagram is another application that was able to reach 1 million users in around 60 days.
The point here is that people on Hive such be preparing for such a reality. We have no idea what applications will take off. What we do know is we are dealing with something that is very powerful. The offering on Hive is growing at an astounding rate. We are now seeing development moving at a pace where there is a noticeable difference.
This is paramount to capturing the attention of the masses.
Ultimately, the key to the network effect on the Internet is to go viral. We talk a great deal about marketing. The major Internet success stories are not due to that. How many advertisements did you see for GPTChat? Compare that to the number of people who mentioned it.
Hive needs to get something to go viral. How this is accomplished is a great mystery. Obviously the present approach is not arriving at this end. That said, we know there is an innovative bunch on Hive. Somebody will figure out a way to get something to take off.
When that does, what happens then?
1 million users will change the entire complexion of Hive. This will put it at an atmosphere few have reached in Web 3.0.
1 Million Users Should Be The Target
Applications should really start thinking in these terms. When one sets a target of 1 million users, the thinking is shifted. This affects everything from the design of the project to how it is marketed. The idea is to create something that people want to use. So far, this is not the approach.
How many roadmaps on Hive have you seen that lay out the path to 1 million users? Is anyone thinking in those terms?
We have Leofinance that set a target to get to 2,500 users by the end of 2023. Do we suffer from an inferiority complex that we have such a low bar?
Certainly, we can point to the issues that are before us. Hive is not without its faults. Ease of use is still something that is lacking to a degree. Some of it comes from the lack of education. There is only so much we can do in an arena where keys are a basic part of the curriculum. Nevertheless, as the evolution of the Internet shows, people do adapt. There was a time when people did not know how to use a web browser or send email.
One of the key premises of having a higher target is the fact that even if you do not reach it, there is still a lot accomplished. What if an application is "only" able to get 250K users? How would that change the engagement on Hive? What would that do for the ecosystem?
My view this is going to happen at some point. There will be a project team that decides it is time to start catering to the outside world as opposed to within the Hive ecosystem. Fighting over scraps, which is what we have been doing, is not the path to success.
To many of us, Hive is the best thing going. It is time we start carrying that attitude in all we do.
Here is a chart of how long it took different things to reach 50 million users. Notice some of the social media applications that were able to do that in under a year.
This is obviously a much higher number than we are discussing here. However, it does take the bar to another level.
In view of these numbers, the 2,500 project looks laughable.
Someone is going to have the foresight to raise the level of expectation and put together a team that can develop an application or game that attracts 1 million users.
And when this happens, Hive needs to be ready.
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