"Hive does need a marketing arm and people running the marketing arm."
I disagree. Hive (actually Steem at the time) grew fastest in 2017, and organic word of mouth by users on the platform built on folks finding our content via searching for granny's sausage recipes, or blockchain, or whatever, was what drove that growth. This is why the flaggotry defunding content creators that are posting about raising ducks, or grandma's electrolysis tribulations, is completely bass ackwards. If those creators got much in the way of rewards they'd brag us up like Chad's GF. We have a marketing department comprised of every author's posts. From photography, travel, gardening, and the broad plethora of mundane and general interest posts that would turn up in searches on topics non-users ran (back when search wasn't simply a list of paid advertisers on Goolag, and was the result of scraping the net for query responses), our content was, and remains, our marketing department. The market for new users isn't searching for Hive development info, or posts touting Hive. When our content turns up in searches for homeschooling, crafting, gardening or whatever they search for, that is how the platform is marketed, when such searchers see those posts getting compensated. That's why more than 1m folks came here and climbed the learning curve after April 2017.
The real problem was never marketing. The real problem with growth here has always been user retention. Unrestrained taxation easily blows users off the platform. Every Hive user can tax any content to the limit of their stake, because that's exactly what DV's are. >1m organic users were driven from the platform via DV's flatlining their rewards between 2017 and 2020 by whales disapproving of posters that made newbie mistakes and taxing the creators 100% of their rewards forever, and the only way to end the taxation was to 1) beg them to stop, and 2) perform whatever penitence they demanded while the penitent was ridiculed and derided, such as publishing a post a day for a year while declining rewards. All of that ridiculing and demanding was done on Discord where we don't see it and it isn't on the blockchain (which is why I refuse to use Discord. Sting exists and isn't used for such purposes because it eliminates that obfuscation). Lots of folks came here and published just like they did on other platforms (but flaggots suppressed posting to multiple platforms undertaken by ambitious bloggers, who if they had gotten more rewards here, would have ceased bothering with lesser platforms. Flagging them was the absolute opposite of the right thing to do to market Hive), but instead of being paid for their posts about mom's Sunday dinners, they were taxed 100% of their rewards, offended, insulted, and driven away.
There isn't a social media platform with user retention as abysmal as ours (or Steem's, our progenitor), and unrestrained taxation for things other than spam, scams, and constant, repeated, actual plagiarism is why. Flagging an offending post with an explanation is fine. Flagging an account into dust forever, which continues today, if the creator doesn't grovel before the oligarchical overlords and submit to their overweening demands, is platform suicide. We don't need a marketing department, plan, or any effort at all to market Hive. Our content and compensation does that. We just need rational code that keeps malevolent whales from flagging everyone and their mother off the platform by taxing their rewards to zero forever for any opinion that isn't 100% Hive development or pandering, reposting their old content to keep it evergreen, or myriad other sins the Lords of Hive disdain. While we have been eradicating our marketing department via punitive 100% taxation of content, social media has become the largest sector of global markets.
There's no way doing the exact opposite of rational platform building during the boom of social media is stupidity, or even insanity. This is a deliberate, well executed effort to keep the platform from growing (Hive had to be really bad to be worse for bloggers than Fakebook or Twatter), from presenting an attractive investment to outside money, because Hive is a pure plutocracy, and we see what attracting the attention of investing sharks does to the tiny whales in our itsy bitsy pond when we look at what happened to Steem. That's the inevitable fate of plutocracy: the richest investor(s) eventually own it and govern it as they please. That's Hive today, and they only keep that pipeline to themselves by discouraging IRL investors from outstaking them and seizing control of the witnesses. All it takes is more money than our puny whales have in staked Hive.
Laying waste to the Founder's stake that has become the DHF is the end game, sucking all the cash on hand out of the platform and sending token value to zero before abandoning it like Golos before it. Looks like Valueplan is an integral part of that end game to me. It's like Bain Capital's rescue plans for it's investment vehicles and KKR's business model. Sell off the tooling, real property, and assets. Take the cash and move on when your controlling interest no longer has substantial value.
The entire capitalization of Hive is lunch money for substantial capital IRL. Sun Yuchen picked up Steem and he's a very minor shark in the global market, the bottom of the billionaire barrel. Musk paid ~$44B for Twatter, and Hive is orders of magnitude smaller, easy pickings for Warren Buffet, who's sitting on hundreds of $B's in cash hunting opportunities right now. The only thing keeping outside investors from doing to Hive what Sun Yuchen did to Steem is it's atrocious metrics as an investment vehicle, which is the result solely of the unrestrained taxation inflicted on content creators by the oligarchy currently ruling our pocket plutocracy.
"The rest are small enough under $5,000."
Just like corruption in any government, enough nibbling by ducks makes a big bite at the end of the month, and only minor efforts at obscuring accounting enables quid pro quos and kickbacks to be overly tedious for inquiring accountants to uncover. There's simply no real accounting for DHF expenditures, and that's basically a neon sign blaring 'Kickbacks' 24/7. The athletes in SWC, the rally car drivers, the tireless presenters at fora, these folks aren't the problem, they aren't bringing in investors, but they're not the reason funds are hemorrhaging out of DHF. The real problem is the substantially staked voters that approved Valueplan and other DHF proposals without any requirement of nominal accounting, because that is how they're looting the DHF. There's a couple dozen whales, and their stake outvotes the rest of Hive. The Hive oligarchs that put Valueplan over the return proposal knew what they were doing, and now we are slowly grasping what they were doing thanks to @hecatonquirox and @atlashv96 sacrificing their financial salvation in the economic hellhole that is Venezuela because they are morally incapable of tolerating that corruption.
The oligarchy are mining the DHF, and when it's mined out, they're off to the next opportunity, leaving Hive a withered husk. Until Hive isn't a plutocracy, we can't do a damn thing about it.
Thanks!
Let's use our eyes to see:
https://youtube.com/shorts/jTW_zAGDHK0?si=BS5BOKk1cBa0pFGy
You make some great points in this thread! !PIMP
The end game of all the Larimer projects I guess. Lol
When you have learned a way to prosper, you tend to stick to it.
Thanks!
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This comment requires a very deep knowledge about Hive and how it works and it is very plausible, because after the responses of @guiltyparties we have received on our posts, we passed from thinking he was being deceived, to think he is a complete accomplice of what happens with SWC. Our goal is to #stopswc because we where victims of it and several other athletes are being cheated right now, so if on the way a whale must fall, we will aim to it.
Being asked to post on Hive as part of promotional project does not make you a victim.
Being asked to post isn't cheating him. Answer the charges he makes, of VP funds being pocketed by thieves by fraud. Produce receipts for the purchases that prove money wasn't stolen by Manuel Ramos as has directly been stated.
So, DHF funds are sent to SWC accounts held by eddiespino and theycallmedan, and Manuel Ramos's accounts are powering down to eddiespino, according to @doze.
https://peakd.com/swc/@doze/street-workout-community
What's with the roundabout back to VP keyholders? @markymark are you sniffing what I'm smelling?
Let's see the receipt for sand used to stabilize bars for which 500 HBD was disbursed to Manuel Ramos's @marscrea account but which @hecatonquirox says came from Manuel's home, where @hecatonquirox filled sandbags.
https://peakd.com/stopswc/@hecatonquirox/most-expensive-arena-in-the-history-of-hive-blockchain-stop-swc
Let's see the receipts.
Being asked to post isn't cheating him. Answer the charges he makes, of VP funds being pocketed by thieves by fraud. Produce receipts for the purchases that prove money wasn't stolen by Manuel Ramos.
Is the direct statement of SWC participant @hecatonquirox. It isn't about onboarding or retention. It's not about Hive posts. It's about theft by fraud.
Let's see receipts for SWC expenditures. Prove these posters that demonstrate knowledge of SWC operations are wrong that Hive is being scammed. All it takes is receipts for the expenditures of ~$155k, which any honest manager would have.
I agree with you, we want the evidence. Guiltyparties seems to be very good at rhetoric, lying and beating around the bush, he should start a political career, he is good at it.
I say it again so it is understood, we are asking to disprove that those screenshots I showed in my posts, which show both an official bank of Venezuela, as well as, transfers with absurd memos destined to the swc-official account and Manuel Ramos are false. If they do not want to do it, if they do not want to show them, I mean their payment vouchers and invoices, it is because they are perpetuating a fraud to Hive that they are trying to silence. Days go by and they show nothing. The silence speaks for them.
I just want to say that neither Eddi Espino nor the guys from Aliento have anything to do with all this shit. I can say that, because Manuel is very skilled at fighting with everyone in Hive. In the beginning Espino was very supportive I think in the healing, same thing OCD. But when they realized that something smelled bad they decided to step aside. This is the information I have. Which indicates that the only one responsible for this money leaking out is Guiltyparties. Already said it @ATLASHV96, at first we thought he's just an old fool managing the money, but at this point I'm starting to believe he's Manuel's accomplice, that alone would explain his unconditional support, which is costing him reputation in Hive, and he doesn't seem to give a shit. Then let him at least be dignified and respond with evidence. Because assuming he is just mismanaging things, then we should rethink his role in blockchain and Valueplan, all of us. On the other hand, if he's stealing money with Manuel, let him bear the cost of his sin, like the persuasive politician he's trying to emulate.
I agree. I am done with my questioning from the perspective of a Hive user concerned about allegations of fraud regarding funds I have stake in. I have asked for receipts dozens of times, and he has flat refused to provide them to me for expenditures of my money.
It is time for law enforcement to step in, and he can try to hide receipts from them at his peril. Given the interest of the US federal government in US funds going to Venezuela, he may be lucky to stay out of Gitmo if he cannot prove his innocence to partisans in the State Department. That is out of my hands by his choice.
I deeply appreciate you and the others that have brought these intolerable practices to our attention. It has come at a cost to you of funds and other things that are far more valuable in Venezuela than elsewhere. There isn't anything I can do for you other than express my gratitude for your moral courage and hard work to make this known in English, a foreign language. I am deeply grateful, and I know others are too.
Thanks!
Your opinion was a light among so much bullshit. We know there are a lot of good people wanting things to change, but it is not in their hands, it is in the hands of the powerful in Hive to make Hive a better place, but with things like this, all the good work they can do, is undermined, and goes to shit, if I had large sums of money I would think twice before joining Hive. That's the serious thing about all this, this affects all of us, the average user and the investors with large capitals.
Maybe when some whale is interested in things changing, they will change. But the sad reality is that the bigwigs don't seem to give a shit about the lack of ethics in accounting and management. It doesn't explain why Guiltyparties is still in the lead as Valueplan's key holder. Maybe his influence is too big, that didn't stop us from telling him the truth to his face. Even if it wasn't pleasant for him.
It is also possible that it isn't a single person, but a cabal of the guilty.
Regardless of the lack of moral fiber, ethical values, or good spirit of the substantially staked, I am honored to have read your words, and heard your story. I am deeply moved by you and others that have shown the moral courage and good character to bring these irregularities and theft by fraud to light. Were all men in the world of such character, we'd long ago have established that paradise prophesied to one day come.
I sincerely wish you a long and healthy life.
I understand that someone has told you and others that you will get something, such as curation, by making all these claims, and I will find that person. I'm not against you or the other guys from Zulia but that individual is a different matter. The curators don't play these games either.
You're wrong, if we ever get curation at Hive Calisthenics it will be on our own merits, and our value proposition to the ecosystem, maybe following the rules that curation programs ask for. Don't worry about us, we are working hard for it. Worry about showing the evidence you haven't given after 15 days of this scandal. You owe Hive a lot of answers. I insist, you are irresponsible, but now I think you are manipulative and rhetorical on top of that. Consider retiring soon.
I will consider it now that you've advised me. I will find that person first though.
An individual who has personal issues with Manuel and who for some reason is very interested in keeping Hive funds safe a very, very long time after the original disagreement and at the same time, a person who to my knowledge never had any insight into the spending line items save for being asked to help source a few things locally, has very limited credibility. I'm not sure what has transpired in the Zulia area for people to suddenly be convinced that wasting everyone's time will somehow lead for something for them but I will find out.
No receipts from any activities in Venezuela or Venezuelan organizers will ever be posted online for safety reasons of the individuals and of the businesses. There are several countries we can't do this for. This has been the case the entire time and the only times we have ever shared photos is when the receipts themselves were unreadable. The only exceptions we have for this are goods and services paid directly through HBD.
First, none of the extraneous information you mention has any relevance to your fiduciary responsibility to account for the large sums of money you administer. Drop it, and stick to your knitting.
Second, there is no security risk in providing receipts, and that line is complete bullshit. I am offended you attempt such blatant manipulation regarding the normal operations of commercial enterprises that provide receipts to customers for the very purpose of accounting. That's a load of crap, even in Venezuela.
I have no confidence in your management of VP funds based on your attempts to divert the attention of Hive users from these accusations of blatant fraud and failing to make the slightest effort to actually prove the accusations false. You have undertaken at every opportunity to facilitate the continuation of any fraud and theft of funds that is ongoing. I have spent enough time allowing you to either disprove you and others are participating in the theft of funds being accused, or wrap the rope around your neck, and you have taken the latter course.
You can tell me whatever you want. You will not be so glib with law enforcement, which I am confident is about to get all up in your business. You will show them receipts, or take the fall.
Good luck with that.
Your opinion is just your opinion. No one is going to change the best practices that are supported by research and regional expertise just because you said so in a knee-jerk reaction to some random accusations, which I already explained a hundred times. Just like how no one will equate flagging to taxation.
Wow! What a comment @valued-customer. A lot to pick through here. I can’t even begin to reply here . I don’t think I am educated enough around the whole thing . I do tend to agree with you around if we need a marketing arm. Maybe a fund for organising the likes of Hivefest and dealing with exchanges . How was that done on Steem back in the day? but then I think would this become just the same. I don’t know the answer . I had a job once sourcing materials and I was given a carte blanche on spending . Middle Eastern jobbie. Now I work for a family who want be to source similar materials but at the best price. It was a massive learning curve for me and dealing in a world of kick backs and bribes it was very interesting but I’m paid well so it’s not in my interests . My whole reasoning for this post is I can see we are being made a fool of . Now this is not the fault of the project managers . These guys are probably all devs earning nice money so they don’t think twice about giving a user 6k for merch for an event. I’d be sacked if I approved a contractor 6k for merch for an event. Anyway I’m rambling. I appreciate your excellent comment and I am concerned about your synopsis . But I have to say . We are likely to go the way that you are predicting than to the moon. Buffett wouldn’t touch crypto. Maybe he’s right.
These aren't so much marketing Hive to new users, as they are encouraging retention of users by the celebrations of Hive at Hivefest, and enabling ramps to fiat for their use.
Now I understand the meaning of your Hive moniker. You have experience dealing with kickbacks through your jobbing with carte blanche, where that is often the difference between getting the necessities or not. Sometimes you just need to grease the skids that the stuff they need brings to the client.
I deeply appreciate your restrained approach to bringing this matter to our attention.
Thanks!
Yeah, I don't get this. It's a horrible oppressive way to treat people and an embarrassment to everyone on Hive.
My guess is they were stuck with a task unnatural to their instincts as investors, and did the best they could to have fun with it, like CIA agents torturing ppl who they knew damn well weren't spies or rebels because they were tasked with creating spies and rebels, which torturing people makes copiously.
Thanks!
Hive is a blockchain with social dapps that are 15 years out of date in an industry that already has the demand for a app to talk crypto satisfied with Twitter.
Blogging needs to die, dapps need to modernize, onboarding needs to be fixed, all dapps need an algo similar to twitter.
Theres your solutions. None of it has to do with downvoting. Its silly to even claim that. Removing downvoting would fix absolutely nothing.
While you deny taxation drove people from Hive, you fail to note that social media is the largest sector in the global financial markets, and that has happened as this platform has failed to grow by paying people to use social media because they were taxed unrestrainedly here and that made Twatter less unfair.
I never suggested removing DV's. They are necessary to prevent spam, scams, and plagiarism, because they work to stop people from posting those things just as well as they do to stop people posting anything worthwhile.
You don't seem to like Hive much for being our Hivefest guy. You sure you're up for the job?
Just noticed this comment. The opening statement I agree with, the rest is here's what my thoughts are:
You missed what the guys were actually saying: Hive wasn't able to deliver social impact in their case because Hive depends on the markets. That's the entire point of discontent and why there's allegations and all the problems going around. It goes back to your general content creator argument. Content creators need to be rewarded and currently there are only a few curation projects. The question is, are we onboarding people with false expectations? Is our platform not suitable for youth?
The content creators you described are blogging adults who already enjoy writing and we know that these people are our age. They're not youth (some of who equated being asked to post as part of their own project with abuse), and they're not leading the adoption of new tech, which Hive technically is. The numbers of these people will decrease over time. Flagging isn't the main issue; the main issue is perception. Flagging isn't a huge of a problem as it may seem unless its flagging for diverging opinions; let's say over political matters. Social media and writings of every kind are becoming increasingly weaponized. We see it here with all the bs being spread in order to create hysteria, but its far more prominent on mainstream social media. No one writes to share information anymore. Everything is botted to all hell.
What's driving people off isn't the flags but the fact that someone can work on a post, spend hours, and not receive anything tangible. We had people tell us they couldn't afford to blog -- they couldn't afford the data costs. They can't afford to eat so how can they afford data. We have an over-reliance on trails, overworked curators, and the perception that content creators are leeches. When curators are paid they're also leeches. No matter what you do you're screwed. But these content creators are like I said, people who want to write, and that puts them within a specific segment of the population. But that segment of the population is working multiple jobs to provide for their families and we can't reward them.
Further, and this is VP related, the scope had to be written in such a way as to prevent opportunistic long-term Hive members who have a sizable non-Hive social media presence from trying to get paid out of VP to talk about Hive or even link to their Hive profiles. This was a problem to the point it had to be written in at the start, because it happened in the pre-VP days. That is just pathetic. Many people promote Hive willingly because they love Hive but many only see money.
This is a general onboarding and retention discussion. It's not a DHF discussion, it's pure onboarding and retention.
Well, let me quote a few of them, and see if that's what they said.
And I have asked to see the receipts.
You are not responding to these comments.
Yesterday you said '...every activity has a detailed budget plan with every single item priced out and accounted for.'
That isn't double entry bookkeeping, but a plan for promotions. We are demanding receipts. The books showing where each expenditure went and what it went for. Accusations are being made of corruption, of money being stolen by fraud, on your watch. That's what bookkeeping is for, to prove where money is spent and into which pockets it didn't go.
Produce the receipts.
The ones I raised I have serious concerns over and if It was a business those people would have been fired. I do not blame GP for what has happened as they have taken advantage of him and is caught up in this. I know if I flew in and visited these projects there would be a clear picture shown.
I cannot agree regarding GP, but it is expected that honest people will be able to disagree and yet work together on the things they agree about. I appreciate your forthright comments. GP has purposed to deceive, refuses to provide receipts and has deflected from direct accusations against recipients of Hive funds instead of responding to those accusations with probative evidence. Since we cannot here compel discovery of evidence, the matter is certainly in the hands of those that can, only a visit to tips.fbi.gov away.
What angers me about that worse than even the fraud and deception, is the consequences of law enforcement digging into Hive's books, in the state they're in, could well destroy Hive. I have never been closer to rage quitting, TBH.