As I stated in my very first post here on HIVE exactly 7 days ago, I don't think it can be understated how symbolic it is that this blockchain, this project, this community is being launched right here, right now during this COVID-19 Crisis. Through a combination of superior developers, engaged community, and top-notch design, HIVE looks to be the clear winner, at the moment at least, in the tokenized social media race.
As a result, to me,
HIVE is THE place to interact with "blockchain woke" folk and other people that are interested in maintaining an immutable (after 7 days) censorship-free platform to record the "hive mind" of humanity as a public good.
As I stated in "HIVE in the Time of Cholera":
We stand at the cusp of a new world. What happens in the next month will change the rest of our lives forever. Let's hope we choose, as a whole, to act in the best interests of society and not just do, as we've always tended to do, what's best for our own narrow set of self-interests. Only time will tell. At least whatever happens is going to happen pretty damn fast.
And happen damn fast is what seems to be happening here in "The Hive." While I still drop into STEEM to manage my coins over there and, as @eveuncovered stated to "shitpost a bit while I power down," I've noticed a marked deterioration in the quality of the infrastructure over there. To the point where I'm like, "Damn, I should be a STEEM Witness, just so this place can work like it is supposed to." Then I come to PeakD or hive.blog and note that every single day the tools are getting just a little bit better and I think that's amazing. That brings me to my first point:
Point 1: HIVE Blockchain Devs Will Never DGAF.
This is actually quite refreshing. I've worked on blockchain projects before and I can tell you: The single most important determinant of the success of any blockchain project is the number of bright, dedicated devs that participate in the development of dapps and other tooling every single day. I used to say, when I was working as a Blockchain Lead, "Just give me some devs who will Give A Fuck and I could do some major good work here!"
Well, guys, on HIVE, no one is ever gonna accuse the scores of devs that are working here of just chilling out and DGAF. Other blockchain projects be like:
They basically just get their ICO money, do some pump n' dumps and move right along to the next scheme. That doesn't seem to be the case here and it's going to be interesting to watch this place evolve without the spectre of an outsized stake and centralized development command center as it were to sort of command resources and move the ecosystem only where they think it is best for them to go.
Point 2: HIVE is the Kind of Community the Whole World Needs Now.
With fully 1/3 of the world's folks currently under some kind of stay-at-home regime, either forced or suggested, all of us need to find ways to connect with humans while maintaining our "social distance." Take it from me. I just spent 6 weeks by myself cooped up in my apartment staring at the world from a 20th story window. We don't need touch so much as we need "touch," to feel like we are being heard and connecting with people on the topics we care about. While much of the discussion around here in the past couple months has been centered around #SteemHostileTakeover and whatnot, and while that has kinda been a welcome distraction from the elephant in the room so to speak, at some point I hope we can get back to all the various different topics that were exciting people and bringing them together here on line pre-B.C.V. - Before CoronaVirus. Beyond the technology, being a part of a robust online community of thousands of people can certainly help us to heal after whatever the hell it is we are all about to go through. If you've read my other posts here, like this one that I just posted, you know that I think it could get pretty horrific. What a boon that we are going to have this HIVE Community right here to help console us, distract us, edify us, and just be with us should that come to pass! That's a whole lot better than some shitposters and bid-botters, I'll say.
Point 3: Design on HIVE is Already Miles Ahead of STEEM.
I never understood the puke green colors of Steemit, Inc. The awful design of the place kept me from really engaging on the platform when I first found it in the summer of 2016. If we're going to onboard "blockchain noobs" to a tokenized social media platform, the look and feel of the main sites has to be exceptional. Steemit never really evolved from that first look. Who knows why? They had a budget. They were selling ads on the site. The better the design looked, the more people they'd likely attract, and the more money they stood to make. Improvements just never happened.
But here at HIVE, in just one week, we see "the look" as they call it in the marketing world unifying all of the tooling, all of the front-ends, everything I've seen so far seems just a lot more "done" even though I know it's just the beginning. I can't tell you how important that is going to be going forward. I'm not a marketing guy, but I sometimes play one on cross-functional teams.
Thus, the developers, the community, and the look & feel of HIVE will form the pillar of this censorship-free social media platform that I think we're all going to benefit from having around for quite some time.
Thanks for reading.
PEACE! ✌🏼
; - )