Many years ago, when HIVE started, people came up with some ideas on how to market a protocol where you could receive cryptocurrency for creating high quality content for your readers. Some of the ideas the community came up with went something like this:
Post your blog. Earn. It's that simple.
Or how about this one
Blog. Get paid.
While "Blog, get paid" could have worked initially to attract people to the HIVE unique ecosystem, we must remember that humans are driven by incentives. And with a proposition like "blog, get paid", which almost sounds like "come... free money", we should ask ourselves if it could it be possible that some people will be incentivized to find ways to earn as much as possible, as often as possible and with as little effort as possible.
input: blog
output: money
There's an episode of The Simpsons where Homer has to work from home on his computer. Being extremely lazy, he figures out a way to use a drinking bird toy to do his work very repetitive work for him.
Kind of like when we see new accounts trying to maximize output:money by maximizing input:blogs, and simultaneously minimizing effort by outright copying and pasting someone else's work or by prompting AI to write a blog post.
You've seen it.
One of the most memorable statements put forth by our friend Taskmaster4450 over and over again is this
You've got to treat HIVE as your business.
This statements is powerful for a few reasons. I'll quickly mention three, and focus on the third.
Your niche
Like any business, you can't solve every problem for everybody. If you start a business thinking EVERYBODY is your customer, you've already lost. You need to find a group of people that have something in common who you can solve a problem for.
Consistency
You need to cater to your niche in a consistent manner. People want to business with other people they know, like and trust, and part of building these three elements is showing up consistently so that they see you, start to like you and eventually trust you.
And finally...
Providing value
This, my friends, is the absolute most important part of your business and in the context of this post, the most important part of your presence in an ecosystem where value can be exchange freely and voluntarily.
Jim Rohn said it like this
We get paid for bringing value to the marketplace
So why don't we ditch the outdated "blog, get paid" and embrace a much more powerful and sustainable philosophy: value for value.
Value for value is not "streaming sats". Bitcoin maxis want to appropriate the term, but it's not what it means. And while, yes, it was put forth by Adam Curry (the Podfather) in what he dubbed podcasting 2.0 as a form for podcast listeners to send creators sats over the Lightning network through podcasting apps like Fountain, v4v is much more profound and universal. A value-for-value economic model is one in which anybody who finds value in something someone else is supplying, can reciprocate by returning value to that person. If I'm not a very technological person, for instance, and I stumble upon a step-by-step guide on How to onboard a friend to HIVE using Keychain, which might be of great value to me, I can return value to the creator by sending a small amount of cryptocurrency, and NFT or I can prompt a second-layer script to trigger a BEER bot so that the author receives a sip of BEER token. All without leaving the platform I'm on, whether it's PeakD, INLEO, Ecency or any one of Hive's multiple front ends.
Value for value.
Let's look at an example that happened to me last week.
My friends, the Cold Beetroot Soup boys (@coldbeetrootsoup) had ben sitting on some raw footage of a community member playing Moon Karts, the play2earn game developed by Arcade Colony. They said "Hey man, we've seen some of your promo videos for Hive. Why don't you use this raw footage to make a promo video for Moon Karts? We can share it on web2 socials as well as HIVE to bring awareness to the game"
And that's exactly what we did.
They sent over the files, I whipped up a little video sequence, added some music and a logo and sent it off into the internet.
Nobody hired me to do the work, but the Arcade Colony folks found it valuable, the HIVE and web3 gaming communities that saw the video on X found it valuable, and fellow community members on HIVE found it valuable too. The result: I got some upvotes on my video and even a few likes, reposts and follows on X.
This is value for value in action!
Can we shift the narrative to this, which is much more compelling? Let me know in the comments below.
Posted Using INLEO
There are lots of things that can have value for different people. It is not always about being a super content creator as you can build a community around a given topic. and just talk about it. That is what tends to happen on other platforms. These all have a 'long tail' of earners with just small few making big money.
I think Hive itself has value as a place to talk that is not censored or bombarded with ads or otherwise exploits the users. We need to get that message out as we are still struggling to increase the active users despite what some projects are claiming.
Oh yes, completely agree with this. This is a very strong use case for people who value privacy and censorship resistance. But remember that there are also people out there looking for ways to make money. Freelance designers, musicians, developers, inventors... You name it. These people can easily exchange value (in one of its many forms) and receive value (in another form. Could be $HBD,$DASH or something else) in return.
Shifting the narrative from "blog, get paid" to "participate in a value for value ecosystem" can potentially attract more users who are able to share a skill in exchange for something else.
I was shocked when I found out that Hive has only 8000 to 12000 active users. It really is a shame.
It really is. I've seen a lot of people give up on it for various reasons and we struggle to recruit more. I am not giving up though.
I'm tempted to say that many people quit because they get distracted by shiny coins with animals that have "the potential to make life-changing gains" instead of a useful 8 year old protocol with tons of dapps that at the very worst can earn you 15% APR by keeping your HBD in savings.
Crypto seems largely driven by hype and promises of massive profits. Maybe Hive seems boring to some, but it works well.
🎬 That Moon Karts Clip is good! But you cannot really play it on a Nintendo console, can you?
Thanks! No it's not available for Nintendo, but our actor is using a mobile gaming device made by Asus called a Rog Ally:
Ah ok. And it works on there? Nice
Yes! it works. It's the one he's using in the video.
We can do so much if we all work together. We can create so much cool stuff 😍 CBRS has always been all about that.
CBRS can also stand for ColaBoRateS with others 😄. There's no doubt about that. We WILL create cool stuff together and show the world what amazing technology exists already. Really glad we found each other.
We will create amazing content together I am 100% sure.
That's definitely a more accurate description man, if you can bring value to Hive, Hive will give you more value. Telling people that you're going to make money just by coming here and sharing photos is going to be disappointing for them and for us on the platform.
You did a good job on the video. !PIZZA !LOLZ
Thanks! check out the game when you get a chance, it's fun. Also, feel free to share it on web2. I've shared it on X:
lolztoken.com
He told me to stop going to those places.
Credit: benthomaswwd
$LOLZ on behalf of nastyforce
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NEW: Join LOLZ's Daily Earn and Burn Contest and win $LOLZ@alex-rourke, I sent you an
!BBH
Nice post, I am new here. I learned from your post. Thanks.
Say what you learned.
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STOPI like it! 👍
I provide value to those in need of finding purpose in life on a daily basis by posting about personal development, values, and habits that lead to success.
This is so amazing! How does that work? I have so many token and I don't know what to do with them
Is this "Moon Karts" aldo a HIVE Blockchain game? Looks like fun!
!LUV
!DIY
!POB
You can send beer just like you do with LUV, DIY, POB: !BEER
Moon Karts is a Hive game, yes. It's tons of fun. You should try it out.
Great! This might sound so elemental, but where can I find it? Because I want to try it!
Regarding !BEER, do I need to buy some before I send it to some one?
If I may add another question, if I stake tokens in Tribaldex for example, can I still send them to people in a comment? I don't know if I'm explaining that one right.
https://moonkarts.arcadecolony.com/
With BEER: stake some, it's very cheap.
With second layer tokens on Tribaldex or Hive Engine: if they are staked, you cannot send them. They have to be liquid.
This is great information, thank you very much! 😀
!PIZZA
!LOL
!BEATCZ
lolztoken.com
But it was too corny.
Credit: reddit
$LOLZ on behalf of acgalarza
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NEW: Join LOLZ's Daily Earn and Burn Contest and win $LOLZ@alex-rourke, I sent you an
Sorry to bother you! What does this mean?
It's asking you if you would like to authorize the moonkarts.admin account to open packs, merge NFTs, stake NFTs and unstake NFTs on your behalf.
You should grant.
View or trade
BEER.BEERHey @acgalarza, here is a little bit of from @alex-rourke for you. Enjoy it!HIVE .We love your support by voting @detlev.witness on
You can query your personal balance by
@acgalarza just sent you a DIY token as a little appreciation for your post dear @alex-rourke! Feel free to multiply it by sending someone else !DIY in a comment :) You can do that x times a day depending on your balance so:!DIYSTATSWell the "come, blog, earn" is probably supposed to be a catchy phrase that was meant to say "after earning then you can learn more about the ecosystem" I'm not sure, just guessing.
It's like how a company says in an advert "buy one, get one free" but with plenty other terms and conditions. Most people who follow the " blog and earn" always finds out it's not as simple as that.
Thank you for this guide. Here at least we can express what is on our mind and heart. Sharing our experiences and get paid. Yeah there is no such thing as easy money but there are smart ways to earn it.
Hive is a valuable place that needs people who bring in more value to it
We have some and we need more of them
Big things are being created if it is done through solid team work