It is sad to see folks from the USA preparing to dodge and weave censorship and digital book burning, but it has become ever more of an issue all my life. The advent of the internet was an immense leap away from censorship and propaganda, but over these last decades overlords have compensated, and in many ways it's worse today than back when print media was the state of the art for decentralized communications.
All is not lost however.
"We have a strong history of not allowing blockchain imperialism to rule the sovereign nation of Hive."
I'm not particularly confident you can back this statement up with evidence. While I'll grant that @ned never attempted to rule the platform, there has been a continuous 'nobility' that has been able to benefit from the bulk of rewards, due to stake acquired early and much. There have been times when very strong repression of newcomers that substantially impacted the rewards pool have been undertaken, and some of those newcomers have eventually been accepted into the fold.
Others, like yourself, have less markedly become upwardly mobile on the platform, in terms of rewards, which is as it should be. Please do not take any part of that remark as somehow critical of you or anything you've done. I reckon my appreciation of your content strongly is apparent in my long support (of such tiny stake as I have to support with).
Anyway, a cabal is little different from an overlord, despite being more like a committee than a warlord, and IRL examples of Soviets and other ruling juntas reveal this is not a unique circumstance. I reckon the fact I am still here reveals the imperial junta ruling Hive isn't so bothersome that I find Hive unusable, or even to cause me to interact and petition them for changes in how Hive operates. From time to time I do advocate improvements that reduce the dependency of the society on weak defenses against Sybil attacks based on financial stake, but no one cares, so I soon STFU.
Overall, Hive remains potential to secure free speech far more than almost every alternative out there, and I am here for the long haul. Fortunately our overlords seem relatively benevolent in comparison to most, whose overwhelming avarice soon destroys potential competition to Hive pretty quickly.
Thanks!
It is possible that my vision of where Hive will be in ten years clouds my judgement of where it is now.
The pattern I see is one of scrappy builders clawing for as much stake as they can get.
While the ones who were here from the beginning are not consolidating power, but rather slowly losing relative power.
I do not see the old guard building anything interesting.
Their money will be separated from them as actual products that get used are built.
Exhibit A:
Do you really think the old guard has the discipline to hold Hive as the price is spiking x10, x100, x1000?
Of course not.
They gonna be buying shit; living the high life; losing more power; not caring because 'moon' & 'lambo'.
Everything as it should be.
None of these folks are going to divest of all their stake for such reasons. All of them derive significant income from Hive at these prices, and I am certain sure they can derive even more significant income from Hive at higher prices without divesting at all. Having tens of thousands of alts makes botting facile, and with the advent of ChatGPT, increasing income thereby will be ever more facile going forward.
There's been plenty of pamps since 2016, and they're still here.