Advice I give as "newbie" returning after a 3 year hiatus...
This community is an incentives-based community. I would venture to say that everyone here got here to earn money in a new, transformative way. (I learned about Steem via a random YouTube video. I didn't know anything about cryptocurrency beforehand.) In this post, I'll be giving an observation, maybe complaining a little, but giving suggestions on how to grow the #hive
I believe most people in the world who contribute to social media sources are not motivated to post for monetary reward. However, those who produce the largest followings on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok have grown their followings because of groupthink, benefiting greatly by ease of use in the GUI (Graphic User Interface). Case in point, it took too much research for me to find how to comfortably get a HIVE account, even when I had previously been on Steem (which was much easier to get started as I remember). It took dedication for me to get an account here. Why? When you go to hive.io, there are many ways to start an account, but they don't seem like they are legitimate portals at first glance (It seemed to me more like one of those bittorrent sites where you pick your download site and hope it doesn't have a virus...I didn't understand why the different portals wanted different methods of allowing me in the hive system). It's kinda weird that you can't just get a username/password right from the hive.io site instead of going through another portal. I don't know what that's about and haven't asked before... Had this been any other media outlet, like YouTube or Facebook, I would have been able to go directly to the root website and sign up in seconds. I would be able to pick out my own password, etc (I understand why the password is generated for you with Hive, Steem and the like). The barrier to entry for these media sites is extremely low. Hive has a slightly higher barrier to entry, in my opinion. The harder it is, the slower the Hive grows...
For Hive to succeed (greater, active user base...the currency value will happen naturally as the user base expands),
- It must be easy to set up an account, so easy a caveman (or dimwit😉 wink to you @lucylin -he knows why I’m winking…it’s not mean) could sign up.
- People need to be able to find the Hive with ease. For step 2 to take place, those who are already on Hive need to create content that is valuable to the masses. It needs content that can be scooped up by major search engines. One problem Hive has is that it has poor keywording. People don't search for #howtowriteabookinaday but they may look up "how to write a book in a day." Fortunately, bots are able to search within content...but metadata helps for SEO.
- Voting is not "liking" like on Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc. at least that's not what it was meant for...as I understand it. Voting was meant to be your way of saying, "Hey, this post has value for the community!" Downvoting would mean the direct opposite-"Hey, this should be shoved away in some corner of the dark web to never be seen again!" So what has value? In the YouTube world, a video has value if an advertiser is willing to pay to have their ad shown before, during, on top of, next to, or after the content. I get paid hundreds of dollars per month to have people watch my content. I can tell which videos are valuable and which are not based on how the populace responds to my videos via likes, subscriptions, shares, %-age of view time, etc. If I think that a post on Hive made me think, edified me, taught me something new, or fed my soul in some way, I usually upvote it, because I think that provides value for the community. If you really like one person’s content over another, follow that person. In YouTube, I have thousands of subscribers who do just that.
- Content variety. If the only thing that is written in this realm is cryptocurrency, mediocre pictures taken on a hike, mediocre drawings, what someone is about to eat, or pity stories to conjure upvotes, HIVE will most likely never increase in value. Hive is similar to YouTube in theory-content creators get paid for what they do. If you like what they do, they get more money. If you don't like what they do, they get discouraged and leave. The difference, as I see it, is that HIVE is mostly text and picture based, not video based. The portion that is video based is flawed to a degree with the same flaw HIVE has...only 7 days of payout instead of perpetual payout.
Those are the 4 major things I’ve seen. The other flaws, like a limited 7 day payout, are things that Hive can’t really change because it’s bred into its methodology. For me, I make passive income on YouTube of hundreds of dollars a month. This comes from videos I've made over time and channels that gain traction. On HIVE, if you don't get noticed in the first 7 days, your content is then given to the public domain, essentially, and whether or not it gains traction, you lose out on any future residuals. I'm not complaining, but I'm giving reasons why it will be harder to produce content for HIVE vs somewhere else that is perpetuating my income.
I hope this helps someone who reads this to be inspired to post awe-inspiring posts with beautiful pictures that are appealing. I hope that people will tag their posts correctly so that people like my daughter and I don’t see NSFW pictures in our feed when because they didn’t get tagged properly. Building the hive community will build all our bank accounts, but it will also better the world…which should be the ultimate purpose. (by the way, I chose the pic below for the idea that the #hive produces honey...no sensuality intended)
Photo by Catherine Heath on Unsplash
Thank you to @lucylin in part for inspiring this post. This came mostly in part to me writing nearly the same information on many people's posts to realize I just needed to write my own post in one spot. Consider the thoughts spread...
Hi, You bring up some good points. The older post no pay -vs- reoccurring payment has crossed my mind. Perhaps there is a way to direct pay after the seven days is over. As you know having payment for work that is done years ago and still pays is nice, not having this ability on Hive can be a downside when the work is still enjoyed. Perhaps there is some thoughts to be had that can further this.
Perhaps once there's a way to advertise on Hive, we can couple the idea of getting paid via upvotes (important content for the hive) and ad revenue can be paid to the content creator, much like YouTube or other media outlets. The person hosting the site, like Ecency or others 'inlets/outlets' (I'm not sure what to call them) can get paid for the advertising space and pay the content creator via hive dollars or similar. It's totally possible...we just need content that advertisers will want to pay to have their content around. I'm pretty sure we already have some content on the Hive that would qualify as something an advertiser would pay a couple bucks per 1K views. This would allow for payment up front for creation (incentive to create in the first place) and incentive to create a lot of good content (perpetual payment via advertisement).
Humm that is an interesting idea. Perhaps i am not fully understanding the scope of what you say because i am hesitant to have major outside companies pay to advertise by throwing coin at people that fit with the companies image. What if there was a community that had criteria entry thresholds for curation, paid a reoccurring amount based on votes on all the posts aggregated together and divided dynamically at end of day. So a constant slowly growing pool of top quality content dictated by the community that was constantly slowly changed and flowing onto no reoccurring status. Much to ponder, what do you think? Can we combine both of our ideas together?
You don't want just Hivians deciding what content is most important. It's a key part of the community and how this all works, but if you allow advertisers to pay content creators perpetually, 1)Hive crypto is purchased to pay people, which raises the value of Hive tokens 2) people are encouraged to make better content, 3) you don't have whales with the power to decide what is important based on their whims. Realistically, if one whale votes against 500 people, earnings can be wiped out in an instant...does that mean the post wasn't valuable to the community? Nope...just to the person who holds the wealth...how does that make this place better? Someone paying to advertise around your post? That shows your post has value, and the token thrives and the better content makes the Hive better. People get paid twice-once by upvotes and twice (perpetually) by advertisers. It's better than YouTube at that point and better content will follow...
It also allows advertisers to sell in the Hive marketplace, which increases Hive commerce, leading the Hive currency to actually act like a currency on a much larger scale...which then gives Hive increased legitimacy all over the world.
On the contrary I want exclusively Hivians deciding what is important. If someone could just come and buy millions of Hive that would consolidate too much power into one hand. You make quite the points for outside advertisers. I do think what the Hive wants is best for the hive and am not sure how that actually plays out in the long term. Ill reflect on those points that you made as they have a lot to think about. We do agree that the Hive community is already better then boooTube.
People can just buy millions of Hive. I have about $300 worth that I bought.
What crypto would you suggest buying Hive with? Is there much difference in spread or transaction costs?
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STOPCheck out the last post from @hivebuzz:
I generally agree with that this is a less competitive incentive compared to, for example, a recognized author who'd potentially be earning perpetual residuals on a piece.
That said there are mechanisms for rewarding older posts. For example you can comment on a post that's older than 7 days, setting the beneficiary to the original post author. Then vote on that comment. A button to make this more convenient could be built into a front end, if the front end implementer liked the idea of rewarding older posts.
building a way for advertisers to spend on ads around a post could also cause some perpetual income.
Welcome back. Explore other Hive dapps too.
Which ones would you suggest?
Try @dbuzz , hive engine/tribaldex and 3speak.
Definitely agree about the ease of use and voting for content. The 7 day timer is a bummer, I am not a fan of advertisements - I pay to avoid ads because I appreciate continuity of thought and the ability to focus without distractions. For me, being a paying customer (I have purchased HIVE and happy to continue purchasing it) should exempt me from ads.
Perhaps there could be a compromise... a selection each member could choose to see/not advertisements and another for the content creator to allow/disallow ads. In this manner, the system would default to no ads shown and all ads seen, a content creator could turn on ads for perpetual revenue and a content consumer could turn off ad viewing. No payment necessary. At the same time, the content creator will have enabled ads for any non-hivians, earning revenue, and for Viviane who haven't found how to turn off the ads, yet.
This is a great post and I think its important to take the time to think about these things. How can we know if we don't talk about it?