It's an interesting post, dear Steve, and it makes me think about the reasons I'm posting here almost every day. To be honest, the reasons are the same of years ago when I started on Steemit: to share my contents about my art and my life in a cozy place where I can meet people from all the world. Before to start here I had a simple, normal blog where few times at month I wrote something, but just in my mother language. I felt the need to improve my english to open my way to other countries and so I started to use Steemit years ago. Like you, I met a lot of interesting users in Lisbon and I was sorry to miss the Hive Fest in Amsterdam, but I love to spend my our at day here, writing and reading contents and sure, not just to earn tokens. Just to know, I use other social media like twitter where I can't earn money,but I continue to use them to stay in touch wit people, so why I have to leave Hive just because I earn few money? (in my opinion, even few money are a lot of money more than I can earn writing everywhere). ^_^
I'm so glad you are Paolo stuck with it. I enjoy seeing your art in my feed. We need Hive to be about much more than just cryptocurrency. I have hopes that it can become a hub for artists and musicians who could sell their work here. Steemfest and Hivefest have had art exhibitions as well as musical performances.