Thank you for this post. Even after a few years here, I do feel often like it's only been a few months. The key is connecting with new people with hopefully similar interests and as you mention very clearly .. bringing along some friends makes all the difference. For me, it's about photos and friends with similar interests in Light Painting. Maybe we all should try Splinterlands sometime. I did experience with Steem and on Hive many different things, positive and negative. Some 'Players'' here feel like they own the sandbox and have to force their way onto others. How to properly behave on Hive is to many new people not clear. It's hard to search for things here. Almost impossible I would even say. So before you know it you have a week of downvotes. Triggered by a single person, which is without checks and balances just BS and drives people away when not done in a humane bullying way. I have seen this play out in "Facebook Style".
It took me forever to get some traction here but today I am thankful that I do find the attention of some people more than before. Curation trails and automatic upvotes are comparable to a Patreon concept which I support, yet it does not prevent someone to post super short posts. I at least always try to compile enough content to make it whole and round for a quick but interesting read as well as some photos that are somewhat interesting. Yet I see the broad mass does not have much attention time. That's ok and we all have to adjust to that. Provide the content in eatable servings. Learning the right balance is hard I must admit. I still struggle at times.
Whist is the next important question. Instagram's success was taking out the fluff and fuss. Just the photo and only when you want to add a caption. I appreciate here that effort to make it more interesting is rewarded. To make people see it though seems another task. I am glad that I had the persistence to stay as long as it took to make it worthwhile for our little community here.. And that is not a monetary-driven motive since more and more friends have found their way here over the years. The rewards become the icing on the cake.
I find myself on both sides of the argument. To start the rewards were unregular and small. Today I am happy when I get attention for some Light Painters from a bigger account that may have followers. The persistence from the early days on allows today for slightly bigger rewards. I have no idea to make it fairer and a little easier for everyone. Thank you for keeping the discussion ongoing. If there is a better way we find it through dialog in a group.
You have always made great content here as far as I'm concerned. If it weren't for you I wouldn't have learned that light painting was a thing (now I just have to get back to doing it lol).
It would be great to see some kind of IG type front-end for Hive that takes the fluff out of photo posts. Leo's Threads seems close, but still not quite the same. Unfortunately I'm not sure we could get some people out of the mindset of "300+ words for every post". And I know it would end up with a ton of junk posts getting rewarded. More than what we see now? Possibly. But I also believe that sometimes a photo is worth a thousand words (or upvotes) and should be rewarded for it, even if it means some crappy ones get rewarded too.
I have tried Splinterlands and honestly I just don't get it. Maybe I'm too old lol. But it does seem like a good way to add value to the Hive economy.
Glad you like that we concentrate here as much Light Painting here as possible. We have an amazing community here and many of the people you see know each other in person. You can see that often in the comment section of the photos. When the English guys go out at night or the german crew drives to some destination together. Then share the story and results here. That's just amazing to see and what we love about Hive as Light Painters.
I always compare Hive to the wild west. There are people with a little power who like to enforce how they think it should be, but it should be about freedom. What is considered abuse can be a matter of opinion in some cases, but why not have short posts? Most people online never read long blogs or articles. We want a slice of that here. Things like DBuzz and Leo Threads could be part of that.
I keep talking about building communities, but I think that is the way forward. Light painting may be a niche interest, but if you can get people from around the world together it can add up. That is what the internet excels at. I grew up at a time when it was hard to find people beyond your own neighbourhood who shared your interests. When I got into computers I had to buy magazines to find out what was happening. Things have changed a lot. I think Hive could be the next generation of online socialising.
!BEER
Being here early on with just a handful Light Painters I have seen people onboarding but losing interest and i think that's partly because maybe they miss some easy-to-use and instant gratification. One could argue thats not Hive but I would love to see Hive having two layers. Call it the superficial Instagram layer and the 'In-Dephth' layer with much more description. That could widen the used case and attract fast-food millennial and generation Z users.
Maybe that could accelerate the wider adoption of the platform. The Wild West situation has its charm to find the gems here takes patience that the most need to "re-learn". As you describe reading a longer post is rare nowadays. To be the next-gen platform some things have to get easier. I am hopeful that all the different DApps will hopefully soon get more and more applications to serve the different styles of the Whatever Web3.0 used case is. We have it all within reach here. Absolutely agree!
Interesting times 😎
G