I made these same arguments on Steemit back before the hard fork. Quality is subjective, but it's subjective in a groupthink sense, as you mentioned.
I don't believe this for a minute:
The Infinite Monkey Theorem states: that a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will eventually write Shakespeare.
While there are a lot of good things in this post, the Infinite Monkey Theorem has not been proven. Nor can it be. It's just something to say that sounds pithy, and it illustrates your point really. What people like en masse isn't quality. People aren't beating down the doors to read Shakespeare, Dickens, and the Bronte Sisters. But they'll waste half their day on Facebook looking at cat memes and the eating habits of strangers. Post that kind of content on Hive and see what happens.
Hive has its problems and the only people who don't know it are Hive maxis. Here are some of the top ones:
- Whale cliques
- Upvote/downvote circles
- Downvote wars
- Echo chamber
That said, there are also some good things about Hive. Where else can you go to write solid long-form content that people will actually read and you have a reasonable chance at earning something from it? While most people writing on Hive won't earn respectable income, the ability to take what you earn and sock it away to earn more over time is incredible. Earn from $1 to $5 per post, put half of that into an interest-bearing account earning 20 percent APR and stake the other half. Keep doing that and see where you're at in a year, or two years. Keep going at it through the next bull run and see where it's at.
For comparison's sake, do the same thing on Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat and see what you have after the same period of time.
I think spending a lot of time talking about how to get more people on Hive is a waste. When they get here, what will happen to the quality of the content? Will the "quality" squad like it? Or will they downvote it because it doesn't meet their standards? Many people have already left over these issues. Frankly, I'd rather have a smaller group of loyalists to read who church out great content on the regular than a million users posting mediocre content, generating AI content that looks like Facebook stuff, and plagiarizing what they found at Medium.
I followed you because I like your profile. Keep up the good work.
I really appreciate the long thoughtful commentary after a post as well. One of the best parts of the platform is the exchange between people. Unlike most decentralized social platforms, I don't have to pay a $10 gas fee to have this exchange. There's plenty wrong and right about Hive.
This was ultimately part of a discussion from the other day that I had with a friend of mine on the platform.
In any case, I'm glad to see that it's only the maxis that aren't tired of the endless Hive posts. I enjoy it and think it's worth advocating for, but man, there's more to life. Followed you back. Thank you.
Yeah, I don't think there's any value to an echo chamber. Hive is the best thing we've got for long-term content earnings, IMO. I've tried several of the other platforms and nothing else comes close to achieving all the benefits of blockchain-based social media. Still, it can be improved.
I'm looking forward to reading more of your content.