Hive has been an exceptional place for people new to crypto to get started. You don't need to KYC with shady centralized exchanges. You don't need to ape in chasing green dildos with your life savings. You just need to write interesting things on a blog, and stakeholders of the chain can reward you. For many, this is one of the lowest barriers to entry to own your own piece of the digital revolution. Blogging rewards have been instrumental in making Hive the place we all know today, and any change, including one as drastic as this, should be debated thoroughly before a consensus could develop.
Before we can discuss this, we'll need to back up. To get the big picture of this situation, we need to understand the history, the current problems, the future problems, and also what's at stake (no pun intended). There are also other problems that will not be covered in this post that will need to be figured out, such as incentivizing staking without curation rewards, HBD emission, and inflation reallocation or removal.
But first things first, let's start at the beginning...
An Abridged History
When Dan Larimer designed MUXER, he envisioned a crypto community with a social aspect which could be used to reward users who brought value to the stakeholders. Eventually this idea was fleshed out to become STEEM, with even more ambitious goals and complex design.
While it is complex under the hood, the idea was brilliant in its simplicity. A cryptocurrency with built in social media that could host dApps. Blogging with rewards turned out to be the first dApp, used to showcase the power of the chain with its fast and fee-less structure. However, to this day, it is the only dApp that takes base inflation and distributes it to users.
Evil Inflation Can Be Good
There are some purists out there that say all inflation is bad. However, if inflation is providing value to the ecosystem as a whole, then one could argue it's not only good, it is necessary. We have inflation to pay our witnesses to secure the transactions every user submits. We have inflation that goes to the DAO to fund things to better the chain. We also have staking inflation, but that's almost negligible in the grand scheme of things. And then we have inflation that pays out bloggers in the form of a reward pool.
Are Blogging Rewards Worth it?
Honestly speaking, there has never been a consensus on what is "good" or "valuable" in terms of blogging. Our community has identified some things that are definitely off limits which almost everyone agrees with, but in terms of creating a standard, our "one-size-fits-all" reward structure for microblogging, long form content, video content of all types, memes, etc have had contention from day one, with no real direction to allow reasonable expectations for users. This has led to bad user experience for many who were used to traditional social media, but then were downvoted and felt punished when they tried out Hive for the first time and didn't meet the stakeholder's opaque conditions.
All is not lost however. While there are glaring problems and difficulties with this structure, this has been something of a loss leader, getting people to try our wonderful chain and experience how painless transfers and transactions can be with crypto. They have easily memorable wallet addresses and instantly feel a connection to them. For the people who decide to stick it out through all the uncertainty, we create die hard fans and ambassadors of the chain in the greater conversations on the net.
As a person who saw the chilling effects downvotes had on the platform in addition to the problems stated above, this has always led me to the conclusion that the reward pool must be decentralized even further to the second layer, to allow each community or style of content their own reward pool. For example, something like a meme community could decide on their own policies for what is posted, and if it's valuable, the users could reap the rewards, without sharing a pie with people who make video content. This allows for much more flexibility in policy, while also concentrating value in the communities that bring it.
This conclusion has always seemed inevitable to me, but I have stopped myself from formally proposing it because it would uproot what people have built here. It would fundamentally change the nature of this chain, destroy business plans, and possibly see an exodus of users. While there are problems with the reward pool allocation and experience, I never felt it was bad enough to throw the baby out with the bathwater. That is, until now...
The Straw that Broke the Camel's Back
At the beginning of this experiment, our community content moderation had to deal with people translating and spinning articles or blogs that weren't theirs in order to try and get rewards. This was difficult to detect, but not impossible. If our vigilant community members weren't able to stop it, the problem would have grown so pernicious we may have been forced to take drastic and counterproductive measures to combat it.
This is what I see lying in wait with AI. In its current state, it can help with help a writer with blank page syndrome, or it can come up with topics or lists, but it's still very limited in regards to creating engaging content that passes as human. Even in the more extreme cases, we have other AI bots that can detect it to combat abuse on the chain. This will not last forever. AI is taking massive leaps and bounds in a short time, and before long we'll have difficult choices to make. There will be a future time with witch hunts on new users, accusations against old users, and an Ouroboros of our own community unless we make a plan now. We cannot wait until the problem is at our threshold, as these kinds of decisions need to be thoroughly thought through, pros and cons weighed, and implementation put in gradually so the pain is not felt all at once to give community members time to acclimate.
If the above is true, we cannot be sure that blogging rewards can survive on the second layer either. When computers can mimic humans with extreme accuracy, there will arise a culture of extreme distrust among the community, and this will be catastrophic for us. New members would be welcomed with accusations instead of open arms. Top earners will be vilified even more than we've seen in the past. However, allowing each niche/topic/type/etc. to have its own reward pool, their own content policies, and its own culture, will be the best bulwark against the worst case scenario from playing out.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Anyone seeing the evolution of AI and AGI on the horizon can see how disruptive it is to our ecosystem. It seems inevitable that the tools to fight it will always be one step behind the means to exploit. While it may seem like a distant future now, some estimates have it coming much sooner than we can imagine. Open source AI appears to be jumping leaps and bounds above the corporate models, and this could come to a head here in roughly 3-5 years.
That doesn't give us much time to discuss, debate, decide, and then execute a plan. There are many problems and knock-on effects this will have. How do we empower those who have built a business model around the reward pool? Will HBD inflation only come from converting HIVE and DAO emissions? Why would people power up HIVE if they can't earn curation rewards? Wouldn't this jeopardize governance?
These questions and more need to be answered before anything can even be fully considered. We, as a community, need to begin this discussion ASAP before it's too late. I have removed a large chunk of this post going over different options for staking, but may include that in a followup post after hearing feedback.
I ask everyone to consider this carefully. Don't think about the short term earnings, but rather the big picture. Leave your questions and comments below, I will reply to each and every one I can. Or join me on the Town Hall tomorrow on X where I will answering any questions I can.
First build that second layer, before you write all of the AI bullshit.
Lol, that might be beyond the talent pool we have in this ecosystem.
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Should Paul Revere have built an army before warning the British were coming?
Thanks for clarifying your thinking on this topic.
Gonna mull it all over more before forming any sort of opinion or conclusion.
For now though, I see your points and still think that dissolving the pool would do more harm than good. Even 'simply' restructuring it to 'Layer 2' would (in my perspective) be harmful given the extra 'trust' (in the tokens and token creators) that it would require.
It is worth noting that I see the same problem ahead with AI generated content... but I feel confident the tools (and systems) can be built to thwart the bulk of it in its current form.
In the future it will be even harder to detect and thwart but honestly there will always be bad actors to contend with... and I am unsure that 'burning the house down just to kill the termites' is the solution that is needed.
My feelings exactly.
Yes, thank you, you spared me the irritation of having to painstakingly dismantle the mess of an argument r0nd0n makes here.
"Burning down the house to kill the termites" - this is what this proposal is
There are a lot of good points in it and good questions which thankfully are being shared openly. More minds becoming aware of and actively working on a problem (or problems) is what this kind of subject matter needs. Especially so if we are to contend with the level of sophistication that the AI tools/capabilities offer a bad actor.
Indeed, AI tools are dangerous in the hands of bad actors. But the focus should be on the BAD ACTORS, whereas here the focus is mistakenly on the TOOLS.
Cannot the same tools also be used by the GOOD ACTORS?
That is the same question that I keep asking.
The other question is:
If the perceived threat is so serious that it is worth removing the Reward Pool and most likely deeply fracturing the Hive community in the process... why would it be any different if the rewards were Layer 2 tokens?
What makes you think this? Malware is always one step ahead of virus detectors. Exploits always come before patches. Why would this be different?
Because I tend to be optimistic.
I am not saying that it will be any different than the current cat and mouse game.
Hive has several unique features going for it.
Perhaps its most powerful feature is that anyone with an internet connection can "earn Hive with their brain", with no need for capital outlay.
And that is only possible because of blogging rewards.
Thanks to blogging rewards a poor farmer from Kenia such as @juliasjohn can get a few cents, a sum which is significant for him. Hive is the only platform I know that keeps the original blockchain promise of banking the unbanked and helping them financially.
Are there risks of abuse? Of course there are, there always were. Is there a risk to crash and die in a horrible car accident when taking your car in the morning ? Of course there is! But the solution is not to ban cars! Nor is it to abolish blogging rewards!
awesome
I was curious if you were still around. Stick around John, the worst that can happen is that you'll learn new stuff.
Thank you very much my friend for encouraging me I'm happy with you.
I might be bonehead but the car analogy doesnt really fit. And I'm gonna go a bit further and say that since you used that for an analogy you obviously are not looking at it objectively from the "big picture"because you took immeadiate offense to even consider the idea.
He's not suggesting that people shouldnt get rewarded. If a user has Hive and likes the post I'm pretty sure you can and should still reward them for it.
His idea simply makes the creator actually earn the reward and the consumer of the content actually consume it. No where in @r0nd0n post did I read "all posts are free for everyone".
Why not let the creator put up a paywall for their content if they wish? That is essentially what he is saying.
It's actually a pretty simple concept that can weed out not just AI posts but also shit posts and vote farmers.
If you look at it objectively then it's obviously a good thing for the entire Hive ecosystem.
Why doesn't the car analogy fit?
Never mind.
My real point is that "the big picture" r0nd0n is looking at is
Hive is about COMMUNITY. The community has a BUDGET and members of the community with POWER decide how to allocate that BUDGET on the basis of the CREATIVITY of the users.
This mechanism is the CORE, the MEANING, the PURPOSE of HIVE.
You can be dirt poor but come here and write something that catches the attention of those with Hive Power and they can decide to share with you part of the COMMON budget. Yes, it's somewhat socialist if you will, except that the community of HP holders does not also cumulate the "monopoly on violence" that the state has.
R0nd0n comes and says: "AI will allow bad actors to come and profit from the community budget, so we should DESTROY what makes HIVE ... HIVE !"
The mechanism is the greatest thing about Hive but it is also the worst thing at the same time.
Yes someone who is dirt poor can join and make a few bucks. But thats all they ever will do. They will never ascend to the top ranks without the approval of those above them. The mechanism keeps those at the top firmly in place like a digital royal ruling class over looking the rest of the peasants for their entertainment. I have seen, as I am sure you have as well, this digital royal ruling class destroy many of the peasants over the years. Ones who dared to speak their own real opinions on something. They have just as much right to state an opinion or to make some money for their content as someone who has thousands of HP in their wallet. But their ability to create an income is destroyed because of their opinion.
I would argue that it is happening now without AI. People tailor there content & posts to appeal to the whales and others with lots of HP to just get the big upvotes. They are essentially self censoring in order to this. It's essentially the same as YouTubers creating videos that will appeal to Googles advertisers.
Is their an example you can show me of a dirt poor content creator that has risen to the tops of the ranks yet? Is their someone who has as much HP as the OG users such as guiltyparties or blocktrades? Someone that has joined and climbed the wealth ladder by simply producing creative compelling content that appeals to all people. Or is there only certain people who have gotten to a somewhat wealthy & healthy place by creating content and posts that appealed to a certain small group of people who have some wealth?
Hive is not growing and has been stagnant for while. It appeals to some people because of the mechanism. But once they join and see that it doesnt allow for their personal growth they leave or are ran out by the ruling class.
If we want to save Hive it must change. If it doesnt it will never grow. Without growth it is a failure. Pure and simple. These things must be discussed and solved for it to grow. And the fact that only a select few people are willing to talk openly about these things are a testament to the fear of being on royal ruling classes virtual shit list and getting down voted. Hell just the fact that it hasnt been approached yet is a huge problem.
People will move on to the next chain that will take it's place. Why? Because Web3 is about the people and not any particular crypto currency. People want and seek Freedom. They do not seek a solidified social classification by catering to the upper class.
They wish to survive & profit as much as they yearn to do. And every one has the right to do that. Not just the ones who are already there.
Do you think moving blogging rewards to the second layer won't work? If blogging is valuable, wouldn't that value translate well to there as well?
The central feature of Hive is the "common budget". In the time of steem 75% of the production went to blogging. Now with DHF only 65% go to blogging. This proportion can evolve. Perhaps in the end only 10% will go to content creation - especially if the price of Hive reaches 300$ 😄 But this evolution should be consensual and gradual, and made with a focus on keeping the community strong and united
That really didn't answer the question. I'm trying to assess the value, and if there is some to be found, it shouldn't matter where it's posted.
I try to reformulate: I do not want to focus too much on what the 2nd layers are or want to be, I want there to be many but I'm not too concerned about them. I focus on Hive.
Its uniqueness comes in no small part from it being a "proof of brain" system: anyone with an internet connection and a reasonable device can earn a living (hopefully) with the "sweat of one's brow".
I deem the preservation of that feature as one of the most important goals, if not the most important.
How do you reward penniless people coming to Hive if there are no blogging rewards ?
If you crack that nut, then ok.
Theoretically you could have rewards distributed to the 2nd layers (to buy their token with Hive and thus offer a floor) and then some of the 2nd layers would focus on blogging by humans (rather than AI) more effectively than you can do it at Hive scale ...
So yes, theoretically it might work at some point.
Incredibly well said and shares my opinion on the matter exactly!
Near the end of 2023, Hive is still grasping at the questions from 2016.
And society about questions from last century
But but butt ...are you saying we should follow the exemple of whaleshares ?!
The exact same reason why everybody left ?! because no more curation and only staking and tipping...how interesting!
Not exactly, but the logic is similar. There's a reason why WS and Blurt did things the way they did, although I think they failed in their approach because it was more about removing instead of building.
Well, they removed DV ...
it was not necessary for whaleshares anymore at that point
And for blurt it is only the hypocrisy of saying we are a peaceful platform.
But blurt takes fees for each action where whaleshares requires a decent mana ( staking ) to post and comment..i like both styles.
If hive was to take fees for all actions : commments and posting, those fees could be burn and help in burning the overall mined tokens.
Also we could create a side community in which we post ( mostly whales ) to burn tokens.
Getting rid of the reward pool will result in a mass exodus of users. This needs to stop being brought up.
Out of the 2.5 million accounts on Hive, there's a few thousand that are even active. Granted many of them are not individuals, but the huge number of people we've had and lost shows there's already been a mass exodus.
We are on the precipice of disruptive tech that is sure to change the nature of our very existence here. We can stick our heads in the sand, or start taking stock of what's at stake and how to approach it.
If you think the userbase is bad now, you're going to find out what's it like when there's no reward pool and it won't be pretty. Probably HIVE's Myspace moment if the reward pool is gone is my guess. All I ask is that if that's the direction HIVE decides to go then at least give those who don't agree with it a few months pre-warning to decide whether they want to stay or leave.
I'm sure if there ever was a consensus on this, which definitely isn't the case now, it would be a year or longer lead time before it could be implemented.
Remove the rewards pool and Hive dies, period. I would be extremely surprised if it doesn’t. I know I would personally unvote any witness that is going to this idea and move my businesses elsewhere.
AI is already everywhere, you are not going to stop it, and then removing the rewards would also chase away most actual humans that are participating. There would really be no incentive at all at that point to continue creating on Hive.
Let’s not split hairs here. This is a business for most of us in one way or another, you remove my ability to make income from this platform and it is essentially worthless.
AI isn't near the level now that it will be in 3-5 years. It will be on par with the best human writers in the world. The incentive to post with AI is directly proportional to the rewards you will receive.
No it's not there yet, but removing the thing that makes Hive actually attractive is really a stupid thing to even consider. So because some users may elect to use AI, you are wanting to penalize all users and basically take away what makes this chain attractive in the first place.
In the movies they usually send in a robot to kill the other robot.
xD
What they don't tell you is the robot is really a clown with a robot mask on.
Terrifying thought!
What a moronic idea! Yes, there will be AI-generated posts that will go undetected, so what? They don´t ruin the platform. Removing the blogging rewards (plus curation rewards too?) will definitely ruin it by losing many if not most content creators.
It is an old idea
Putting the blogging rewards on layer 2
Even @twinner was for it already 3 or 4 years ago
Please do not insult people or ideas you disagree with
Ich habe nicht ihn beleidigt, sondern ich halte die Idee für Schwachsinn. Ausgerechnet Du solltest vor der eigenen Türe kehren, wenn es um Beleidigungen geht!
Wieso?
Du schmeißt doch alles in einen Topf und ignorierst den Kontext und Zusammenhang
Meine 'Beleidigungen' bezeichnen lediglich das Verhalten der angesprochenen Personen
Wenn jemand an totes Leben glaubt, dann ist er eben ein Unbegeisterter/ Geistloser
Ich nutze ja nicht mal Geisteskrank, denn da gäbe es ja noch Hoffnung auf Heilung
Thanks for your level headed constructive criticism, I will keep that in mind.
Sarcasm doesn´t make the idea better.
Disrespectful comments don't make the problem go away either.
Ok, Im just gonna go ahead and ask if it's even possible. It probably is and it will probably stir up some more of the hater comments.
What if, or is it possible, to use Hive as a protocol to tie the apps & ecosystem together but use a different currency such as bitcoin, eth or even monero as the currency side of it?
I know Spk Network are working on ceramic accounts to allow inter chain stuff. Hell Dtube you could use Steem & Avalon alongside Hive.
From what little I know about the tech side of things, Hive seems to out perform other blockchains when it comes to speed of transactions. So why not use it as a protocol and something else that already has more value and market stability for the currency aspect? Why does it have to do EVERYTHING?
You can all now roast if me if you so wish. But I expect an honest technical, real answer first and not just a "god your a dumbass answer". We all know and I own that I am a dumbass. So the insults wont work. Lol.
I don't get the problem, so what if people create AI assisted blogging?
I'm going to need a more clearly defined problem before I understand this.
All I'll say is the reward system has been (challenging, and problematic) the foundation of Hive, our communication center and what holds the Community together and how we found so many non crypto people who wanted to be a part of this thing.
There are 100,000 blockchains now running and looking for developers, we have a few games that have done well also, but outside of that Hive is a blockchain swapping HBD for Hive, who is going to have either or need either without a community?
Even though I haven't been very active here lately, I love Hive and the community, but with zero incentives there are easier places to communicate.
Because most of us old-timer came looking for a community, not just another place where content-for-the-sake-of-content was used to farm rewards, and people refused real interaction.
It's possible for all of those things to happen at once.
Not when the incentive structure remains as it is. There are so many people farming empty comments, AI nonsense, and Actifit-style auto-posts with voting circles based on nothing of substance.
governments are already pushing AI development firms to build in identifiers into AI generated content. AI is going to be a paradigm shift in our lives.
If the Hive blockchain wants to discuss anything about AI it should be how to utilize this shift to make this chain the most advanced and future ready chain it can be. How to embrace AI for the good, not how to fight the inevitable.
So, yeah @whatsup, I agree with you. The problem isn't with AI. It's getting used as an excuse.
Do you think rewarding communities on layer 2 will kill communities and provide zero incentives?
No.
Before you know it people will be using AI to create video games on Hive
And then people will play those games and allocate money to them.
Then they'll use AI to build infrastructure.
Before we know it everyone will be using AI to generate value on the network.
Can't have that.
Why not?
In the past there were no electronic calculators available, to use one of them was considered as cheating (in school). Now it is common to use them and the world didn´t collapse. If one day it will be normal to use AI for everything, so be it! This attitude of not allowing AI reminds me to the teachers banning those devices back in the 1980ies. Completely pointless.
AI is a tool. As long as AIs are not conscious and are not draining Hive to spend it on their own purposes (e.g. backup batteries😄) there is nothing to fear. If AI-generated content is so good that one can´t differentiate it from human, if I am entertained by the content and learned something, so be it.
Chalk it up to sarcasm not translating well on the Internet and across languages.
It doesn't matter where the source of value comes from.
If it's from AI nobody cares.
Lmao, if only people understand this comment of yours, this whole AI bullshit would come down a notch😂.
AI might hurt us, let's kill ourselves first!!!!!
Wait I saw this in a Furturama once! Take heed a brainwave of genius!
I'm with you on this.
I think that the reward pool should be allocated as staking rewards instead of content rewards.
Provide easy to launch communities, apps and tokens with a good secondary market for them and let each community moderate their own token, content and rewards.
If people want more hive they trade their leo, spt or whatever secondary token they get rewarded in.
People can support the eco-system by powering up hive and getting rewarded passively without the need for voting trials, downvotes, infighting over quality content.
This does not make any logical sense because if the communities control the abuse like they should then there will be no problem on Hive. If we are saying we are going to see more AI abuse on hive in the future then this is changing nothing because rewards are still coming through from the community token. There has to be a better alternative as relying on communities for rewards is not the best as we have seen how that has worked in the past. 90% of communities have been milked dry and they hold no value. I see very little positives in this and you know me I am all behind Hive doing well.
Exactly my thoughts, thanks.
This is stupid, sorry. It does not make any sense at all.
If all would just stake and not engage, this platform would be dead. It would be just one more DeFi platform.
Good write-up.
We do really need the "twitter/X spaces" of Hive. Something where people can quickly distribute info to their followers. Not sure if anyone finally did that?🤔
I would say INLEO is doing this well.
removing blog rewards would completely destroy how my city works, it destroys what made Steem and then Hive special in the first place. I would stop my witness and power down at least half of my hive and use it to buy splinterlands cards. And most of my hive activities outside of Splinterlands would come to a halt.
What I'm proposing is a huge change, but also comes with caveats. If the content or the people it brings provide value, that value can be redirected to layer 2 with more flexibility for those particular communities to create the culture they want to see.
There would also have to be a long period of acclimation, doing anything at the flip of a switch would be devastating to those who built here. There are others here already building the tools to make things like this possible, and with the right approach, things would be conducive to growth and synergy.
You of all people know how incentives can make or break an ecosystem. Right now the incentives are obvious, what I'm proposing only exists in the abstract, but if we proceed with respect for people's wants and needs, the proper incentives can be incubated to ensure little to nothing is lost, while much can be gained.
Yeah, AI is a conundrum. Actually, there is no AI, (Artificial Intelligence). It is just code made by Humans that scrapes every bit of its information from the internet and spits it back out.. Not one thing is original in its raw form, in my opinion.
We are the intelligent ones with the ability to use this code ethically.. Of course, most won't if they think it will give them "an edge".. So, somehow, we have to all become equal with no "edge". No need to manipulate. How we do that, not sure but it needs to be done. We are either here to lift each other up or to shove each other down. Pretty simple really, that part.. Just planting a thought seed.. something to think about and consider as we move forward.
hey R0n, want to come on CTT on Saturday afternoon PST to discuss this? i think its super important, and we are building layer two tokenised community front ends which are free to spin up.
U stake the token and can drop to existing crypto communities, including those on hive. U
can exclude known bot and abuser accounts if you wish and have various ways of excluding exploiters
to me whether we like it or not, AI will be used by other hiveans to add a scam tax to the community those hiveans will then use their own stake to upvote their own AI content accounts for the AI bots that the hive scammer users own themselves.
As of right now, hive knows who the humans are. This is a good reference back to the time before the AI. So we have that to start with.
We can then use these people to verify who the new real human users are, even if its by face to face meeting with several existing known human hiveans who each attest and approve that the new user is infact not a bot. after a certain threashold of existing hiveans vouching for the new user, they move to a "potential real human status" and can earn the real human status via interactions with other known human community accounts over time.
Anyway, love to discuss this further on CTT Podcast on Saturday. anyone is welcome to join to discuss
I will be there.
Sorry for being blunt, but this is muddled thinking. It gets me so upset reading such highfallutin nonsense, I don't even want to start dismissing your skewed reasoning.
Did AI write this comment?
No, it did not.
That's exactly what an AI would want me to believe.
:-D
Have you met any AI with goals of its own yet? I haven't. But if an AI would develop with "wants" and purpose, it would still need to get people to vote its posts.
I mean, we had heajin and ranchorelaxo even before AI. There is no need for AI to have reward pool abuse. You are clearly losing sight of the forest for the big and scary AI tree
My concern is not with AI becoming sentient and creating Hive accounts to make money. AI is just a tool for humans to use. My concern is unscrupulous actors using this tool en masse, and it being indiscernible from any other content.
This concern has far reaching effects that go beyond a small % of the reward pool being drained. There will be a path of least resistance most users will take if there is no barrier. This also assumes Hive grows as well, but maybe if we stay stagnant we'll have nothing to worry about.
Valid concern. Very valid concern. But you jump to conclusions. I strongly disagree with your conclusions from the title: "blog rewards will need to go". That is a "cure" infinitely worse than the disease. Basically it's "killing the patient to stop the disease".
You are mentioning a "barrier". This is the right direction to look into: how to create barriers to prevent or at least mitigate the risks. Not dismantling the whole system
The value of content is actually black and white.
Does it make money? Yes or no.
Just none of the front-ends choose to monetise their content and the DHF continues to subsidise the garbage we see now.
There is no good and bad, it's only the network effect that makes any of it valuable at all.
I still see it as a loss leader, getting new people in the door and keeping them here. If Metcalf's Law has anything to do with the price of Hive, then this should translate to value.
Interesting. I am still trying to form my opinion on this but first I would like to see better content discovery and search options on Hive and possibly a revision of the 7 day payout window to allow for rewarding evergreen content from the reward pool.
If content has possible value into the future I believe people will be more respecting of what they put on chain and the reward pool may even get better dispersed.
Putting rewards on L2 gives a much better chance for rewarding evergreen content. In fact, INLEO is already starting this proving the point.
Perhaps we should task the curators with increasing their diligence while curating?
Instead of voting it mostly to those that drop it like it is hot, those curators could cultivate the authors that do other things outside of blogging traveling food posts that helps bring attention to us?
Rather than blindly voting rewards to people, perhaps relationships beyond 'me big vote, you lick boots speak corporate speak' could be developed?
Hivewatchers has been a source of friction all along.
It exists because curators can't be bothered with not voting rewards to scammers.
The anti-abuse community, few that we are, has had to chase behind the people complaining about dilution while voting rewards to people that dump all they get as quick as they get it.
Wtf?
Rather than being responsible curators, many curators expect hivewatchers and sundry volunteers to keep the mess tolerably cleaned up.
Scammers get more support than dissenters.
Dissenters at least make examinations of what is likely truth more plentiful.
Scammers are who are diluting the complainers.
I agree with what you say about rewards migrating to the 2nd layer, but I can't see that as a realistic occurrence before rc's have value.
Once rc's can be rented out the need to distribute the hive token can be dialed back.
People will move to the second layer because the first is more expensive to maintain a presence on.
Until then, it looks like we get what we got because that is how it is and nobody that could change it will change it, imo.
The adage is just as true now as ever, 'If you don't like how hive is being managed, buy more hive.'
Curating is a job. It's often thankless work, and the reward isn't great. Until someone can feed a family and live off curation rewards, I very much doubt we'll have a chance at the professionalism you seek.
I'm not sure how one begets the other. But assuming it does, if RC's become much more valuable, that means we've grown massively. But if we've grown massively, then content moderation is even more complex. Decentralizing to L2 allows for competing approaches of tackling the problems that arise.
Yeah scammers are STILL a big problem
Have never thought about scammers being more profitable than dissenters, but you are probably right
I have also been expelled from the German community
They rather just agree with each other and vote this instead of overcoming their bias
They think they are right and even successful
Sadly they will loose everything, it will be harder the more they cling
And denied truth and common sense before
Control freaks gotta control.™
!lol, that is hilarious.
Germany has laws against professing fascism, but clearly that is the preferred technique to dealing with their problems.
'Do it, or you are out!'
Lmao.
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He lost interest.
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stoked to have you there buddy, gunna be a great discussion
It will be interesting for sure.
Thank you. You say it much better than I could ever say it.
Different points than what I had come up with. But it's the same very important message that has to be brought out into the open and discussed now rather than later.
I think AI can be used for both good and bad. Currently the content on Hive DOESN'T really bring value, because it's not bringing views and new users in. What's considered quality isn't cutting it for growing the platform.
How can AI help? Well, it can help improve the accuracy of the information being shared across the platform. People want information and they aren't getting that here with any relevancy. AI can change that.
I'm brand spanking new on Hive and can't find any content I like or even that helps me with anything. Part of that is the lack of good content discovery tools, but it's mostly content that is TOO personal. Maybe InLeo can help with that with their better search tools they are developing.
How can it hurt? Well you've already covered what seems the common argument.
Now I sit back and take all the perspectives in, because that's the best way to come to sound decisions.
Now for what's really needed; Hive has been glitchy as heck and that needs to be fixed ASAP or none of these side conversations will matter anyway!!! The nodes suck, all of them and need to be stabilized.
Right, AI is just a tool, and in the right hands it can be very beneficial. I've also seen the other side of moderation, where my team and I had to ban over 25k users from using our service because of exploitation.
Hive has lots of little problems, details, that need to be fleshed out. It's been over 6 years of iteration that has produced what we see today, and I would say we've seen massive improvement over this time, which gives me hope for the rest to be sorted given enough time.
I see so many users overreacting to your idea. It's kind of silly these days that conversations cannot be had, just attacks and negativity. I myself don't see how removing rewards will strengthen the community.
Rewards are what keep the few still here and there are outside usecases for HBD, which is necessary for the platform.It's not fair to ask those initiatives to just start over. Also, Hive is the gateway to get fiat out of the system. Having communities become companies in an attempt to try to get on exchanges is a huge task and is unlikely. So, I think 2nd layer tokens won't work as Hive and HBD currently does.
I commend you for starting the convo, but doubt any changes at this level will happen, because the domino effect would be too devastating for the survival of Hive.
I haven’t seen the community this united since that time taskmaster posted a picture of boobs.
Show me
Ah now it is @trumpman version 2.1 feet pics ... we are evolving ^_^
didn't expect the AI twist in the argument. still, i like how the mining of hive is done, the idea that you can get your part of rewards only if you distribute it to others is unique and it made this blockchain more decentralized than most (is it perfect, no, is there a lot with better distribution, no).
if there is no curation the only reason to hold hive would be RC and witness voting. So 1k hive to be sure you have enough RC and that is it. Why hold hive to vote for witnesses to help them make hive? hive would go from DPoS to PoS.
And Elon Musk said that in few years we will have Digital God so... And he is always right.
The first time I heard you say we should do away with blogging rewards, I thought that would be the death of Hive.blog. Now I see what you're talking about. By transferring the value, and the judgment of it, to the communities, new users to the blockchain could join a community the moment they set up their account. With the 3 types of communities, anyone on the blockchain could join or start a community of any of those three types. If each community distributed its own rewards by either creating a Layer-2 token or using one already on the market, then all types of content could still be rewarded.
On staking, HIVE could always transition into a governance token where anyone on the blockchain could trade Layer-2 tokens for HIVE to increase their governance stake. The staking mechanism wouldn't necessarily need to change. Although, there may not be a need for HBD anymore.
How would the overall reward pool be distributed to the communities? According to the number of subscribers, to the number of active subscribers? To the number of posts? To the number of quality posts?
Each community would decide that for themselves.
I guess, during town-hall, my point was misinterpreted because I couldn't present it well.
Here is what I suggested - wild & random thoughts for food
Solution 1
Solution 2
I don't think fiddling with the % is going to have any meaningful impact on things. In fact, if people think rewards bring such value, I'm actually wondering why nobody proposes a bigger reward pool.
This is already possible, so either it won't work, or people don't find content here valuable.
Okay. So, what solution do you have in mind?
If people aren't willing to tip but eager to vote & inflate, we must ponder over this problem.
We need again an initiative like utopian was, they used to upvote heavily original and useful content. To this day when I google something I find tutorials that were sponsored by utopian, sometimes even my own
Utopian is one of my favorite abandoned projects. I'm not even a dev, but I saw the value in it. Maybe it could be resurrected on the DHF?
I commented on this on MM, but I'll also put it here on the chain.
I could not join the Town Hall today, but I'll share my opinion.
I don't think Hive is ready to remove the reward pool. Look at the tribes or tokenized communities; I can count the successful ones with one hand and have many fingers left.
When we have 10 or 20 successful tokenized communities, maybe we can start to talk about removing the rewards on L1. We also need better layer 2. Hive Engine has been having issues for weeks. I think it would be worth first trying to improve HE and help develop the other L2 before trying to remove the reward pool on Hive.
Removing it now would be a death sentence to Hive because many users will leave. Damn, maybe many would consider going to Steem or trying other options (like that new one that is going to be launched on Koinos).
I agree with making the investment in Hive Power more attractive; investing in HBD shouldn't be more attractive. A nicer APR on holding Hive Power without having to vote would be nice, in my opinion.
I'm not advocating to remove it now, I'm thinking we have 3-5 years, and things can be done gradually while also building replacements.
Ok, makes sense.
I agree to do it in that time frame, but only if we get good replacements and more success cases because, in 7 years, we have only one or two.
Remove the DEX? Then how would users see all the different tokens they have in their wallet?
Don't forget, Tribaldex and leodex also use hive engine. 🤔🤔🤔🤔
Who said anything about removing the DEX?
What I said is that we need to fix HE, because it has been having issues for months now.
I guess I misread that. Apologies. 😁
I agree, HE needs to be fixed.
Thanks for that!
I was just looking for other options today and given who some of the developers are on Koinos (who actually put their name and faces on it) it may well be a good fit.
Gonna give it some time before I make up my mind about completely abandoning Hive... but as things stand my mind is mostly made up to do so.
Not looking forward to editing all my posts and inserting a "Hive is not worth it!" message in the body but dislike the idea that my words might lend value to something that I can no longer wholeheartedly endorse.
I tried to make an account on Koinos the other day, I spent several minutes and I was not able to do it, so I guess it has some of the same issues as Hive.
To be honest, the thought of leaving Hive crossed my mind not too long ago, there were several reasons, but after thinking about it, I decided not to leave. If you want to read my thoughts about that check this, it's a translation to English of my post.
I think that Hive still has potential, we just have to focus on fixing the issues that are still affecting the onboarding and the retention. Yes, there are some toxic community members. Some apps have many issues, some projects are funded and are not getting the results they promised. And Hive can be tiring and demotivating sometimes. But having said that, I'm not sure that Koinos is the replacement of Hive, or that it could do it better. I haven't seen any evidence indicating that.
The future of Hive can be better, and I know that there are users who are working to achieve that. But yet, everyone is free to make their own decisions, I've made mine.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply. Gave your linked post a read and found it illuminating in regards to your situation and reasoning.
Did you try the signup via https://app.koinos.pro/user/register I have not tried it yet myself.
I do not believe hive curation and tips should be done away with completely but I do agree that communities and layer two should be allowed to set their own rules.
I see nothing wrong with using AI to "HELP" with writing but should not be completely relied on (no copy paste). Just be sure to state in such posts an attribution when necessary.
There are people here in this comment section! :)
Layer0s has formed mostly on Discord and are moving to X now. Additional layers are forming surrounding Speak and VSC currently, mostly carried by a few leaders. It's interesting how things have turned out.
There are a lot of smart people who understand STEEM/HIVE as a technology, none hates good open source technology. But some will never engage with the current governance again. There are only 20+1 witnesses and the famous Hive Watchers are still around.
Time will fly and all CEX will de-list coins without a regulatory appropriation. That will cause a tiny cataclysm for sure. Meanwhile as the technology advances, reason to keep the current L1 as main-chain decline at the same speed.
You don't have to be Nostradamus to understand that the incentives for a fork are the highest, the closer to the peak of the next bull market we are, somewhere in the next 12months. I don't dislike this layer1 version of the Hive Blockchain, but there's no reason to be romantic about software versions. Whoever gets the critical amount of socio-digital support behind them, will come out with "the best idea" and the others will most likely blurt away in the following winter season. It's a clown world we live in.
There has been disagreement on inflation, votes up/down, witness count/votes, DAO usage and private transaction for as long as I know. No reason to think that will ever change :)
What do you think?
I'm not sure what you mean by this.
Those are not related directly. The lack on penetrability in the Witness system is not optimal in the current crypto industry sentiment and it would be of great benefit if more people could engage from that angle.
Now to the second part. Hive should have been the place to birth Community Nodes. That would have been a real priority. Funny enough, now you could copy paste from X, but there's no motion. I'm fairly certain that gaming the system is part of everyones mind at some point. We're all battle hardened by the Crypto Sphere after all. The fact that there's still no proper advancement means, important people just don't want to.
This brings me back to an idea that I've been flirting with for some time. The reward split on votes is 50/50, we don't want to make it lucrative to game the system, ok cool. And we don't want to give people the ability to completely annihilate each other or to spook everyone away from engaging.
That would mean, the logical setup is:
Downvotes,...
I fail to see why that's not been the default. Beyond that, up- and downvoting tools should have been democratized for anyone to use with their stake.
La incertidumbre de lo que pasará o no pasará!! Ojalá que lo que ocurra sea bueno para nuestra comunidad y así poder sobrevivir a los posibles cambios y podamos adaptarnos.
While i recognize the threat of AI to the hive reward pool and humanity in general.
I could not disagree more.
If this idea gets traction and happens, it is the immediate death of HIVE imo. With AI it will at least be a battle, that may very well be lost. But what you propose is Suicide in my view.
Did you come up with some more thoughts or insights since you wrote the above text?
I've been here since 2017 and the really exceptional content I find actually tends to be on posts that point to content taking place outside of Hive. Authors and books that are not found in the usual search engines, for example, or are very difficult to find. The idea of earning money with your own content has made all content mediocre in my opinion. The fact with all platforms on the Internet is that mediocrity is rewarded. The second fact is that people find reading tiring and the habit of reacting to headlines and snippets of text is widespread. In my view, these are impulse reactions.
Individuals like to think of themselves as exceptional and are mistaken in their self-assessment of the quality of their content. "There is nothing new under the sun", yet people generally always post exactly what is nothing new, hence the expected. The expected, however, is the dissemination of ideas that are already thin in the first step. The wider you spread these thin ideas like butter on bread, the thinner they become. The paradox is that the more superficial attention they receive, the more important they appear to be.
The same thing happens in the film industry. Once outstanding, and therefore successful, scripts are copied and each new copy loses quality and the only thing that hypes such poor content are the budgets of people who are actually completely uninterested in the matter.
In order to be highly interested in something, you need people who are really into it and are well trained and experienced in their profession.
I agree to the extent that getting voted and collecting the rewards is basically a hindrance in wanting to become excellent or an expert. It's too easy. I don't mean that it's easy to get high payouts. Rather, I mean that it's too easy to build loyalty with people you basically don't know. Anyone can easily become a flatterer, all they have to do is say what someone else likes.
It's a "wanting to please culture" that has more and more difficulty recognising what real criticism means. The well-meaning critic who criticises another is always interested in seeing the other person develop, grow beyond what they can already do, but can become even better at. Flattery and unconditional confirmation is the death of improving skills. Though it's a booster for posting.
Concentrating on the voting button allows direct communication to slip through the lack of commentary, for example, and the unwillingness to really engage with an individual challenger in a sporting manner. How many challengers can you actually handle per day? Communication via the wallet, for example, has fallen by the wayside (including me too). At the beginning of my time here, I directly tipped a lot more often or slipped a few tokens to someone else. If one wants, one can reward others via your wallet, for example to give more than just cents via a vote.
There was a time when I bought art with HBD and the artist agreed to send me a work of art by mail. The fact that Hive has not become a place where matter is still seen as a trade commodity is a question I ask myself. .... I don't know, maybe I got blind and lazy, myself.
Correct me if I am wrong @r0nd0n but are you sure that you are not playing rodeo clown for the plans that @jarvie has to remove the Reward Pool?
Also Happy New Year and I sincerely hope that you are doing well.
Much Love & Respect.
I came to this conclusion on my own, based upon over 5 years of curation, mitigating downvote abuse, and extrapolating advances in tech. I actually talked with no one before writing the bulk of this post, and expected nearly 100% opposition to it.
Understood. Sometimes I can admittedly be a bit too suspicious. Thanks for clarifying that.
what are you even talking about? We haven't even made peakd plans with all our work on peak open projects. Also Rondon from what i understand is much more in favor of this. There needs to be a mechanism to impart of HIVE governance token inflation and the pool that imparts of this to users through the reward pool has worked pretty well... if we got rid of this we'd have to figure out how to impart of the governance token and NO ONE has a plan that would sufficiently replace this. I assure you I am not your dragon in this fight that I know little about i've been focused on our other projects... i joined a twitter space once and shared some thoughts that apparently have been misinterpreted or perhaps not shared very well but in either case.... There has to be a distribution mechanism for our governance token HIVE otherwise we risk trending towards and not away from centralization even more. My thoughts then go towards the social media side of things that the rewards pool is why lots of us are here but also why many more don't come here... because so many of the general community of Hive seem to focus too much on that ABOVE what other platforms do which is to create an audience for their content and find willing and excited readers and create a sense of yearning for their content and consistency of readership. They have impact on people through their content and that keeps bringing people back and it grows and grows and so little people do that and focus on the number of eyes and the impact of their message on their hearts and minds. If we had MORE rewards that rewarded other things this would be better.
Also another solution is to teach people they can SELF turn off their rewards by clicking a button or click to opt into rewards or read and acknowledge the whole concept of allowing a community of various individuals and groups to vote up or down on their content then they'll maybe have more understanding and buy in and also separate our greatest social media contribution which is that they have true ownership of their content and that the reward pool is separate from this and they can opt into it and get another reward and that if they have stuff that maybe they want to share that someone else created they can acknowledge it and not contribute their post to the reward pool and this would solve a TON of the problems i see between people fighting with eachother. I mean i could go on... but in the end I honestly don't know why you think I want to "remove the reward pool" i want to make User interface changes that help people UNDERSTAND the reward pool and to reflect on it... and for people to focus on other things that will get people to connect and bring eyes to their content. But HIVE needs an inflation mechanism that is as wide as possible and NO one (including me) has ever made a compelling argument of what it could be other than a content based reward pool.
Obviously you know the weight that your words carry on this platform... and while I was trying not to drag PeakD or Peak Open Projects into this... you (if that really is you) have chosen to speak with them. Perhaps you did this knowing that they carry even more weight... but that is wholly conjecture on my part.
If by saying... that r0nd0n is 'much more in favor of this' is your way of... either deflecting or throwing them under the bus... I am not falling for it. If that is not your intent then my apologies for bearing the previously mentioned sentiment.
Furthermore, I have spent an incredible amount of time doing my best to fully understand r0nd0n's points on the subject at hand... and come to only one conclusion in regards to their motive: They see a real and present danger and have chosen to put their neck out their to provide a possible solution.
I am neither looking for dragons nor looking for a fight. That said, from what I know of dragons (and for that matter fights with dragons) they tend to be easily slain whilst snoozing in their lair... where they can often be found laying upon their ill-gotten horde. All of which is neither here nor there... but since you broached the topic... there you have it. By the way, I love dragons and dislike the idea of anyone harming them but that is besides the point.
As for your comments in said 'space' where you shared them. It was brought to your attention at the time (by me actually) that they had caused a bit of an uproar... along with lots of confusion. I went way out of my to do so (even sacrificing my privacy along the way... since no one can speak in your server without giving you their phone number) and straight up you called the person 'dumb' and brushed my concerns off. The former may be a character flaw of yours... we all have them so no judgment there... and the latter (being brushed off) is meaningless to me... and something that I am quite accustomed to... and subsequently do not hold it against folks.
To be clear here (to the best of my recollection) I think the way you worded it was 'maybe they are just dumb' but honestly you demeaning them (instead of directly answering the question posed) was all I needed to hear... before realizing that I was wasting my time trying to have an actual discussion with you about it. Again, let me express that 'words have weight' and in that instance... you made a conscious choice to add insult to injury with them... instead of seeking clarity, understanding and conclusion to the question at hand.
In your response to the question that I have posed to r0nd0n in this thread (and the question aimed at you to some degree) you use the term 'we' quite liberally. I dunno how many mice you have in your pockets there (that is a play on the term: do you have a mouse in your pocket) but I am unclear on what 'we' you are referring to and would prefer to hear your personal views... from your personal perspective... if you are capable of such. For all I know you could be speaking about the Hive community, your business associates or perhaps even the Mormon mafia for that matter. There is really no way of telling and I am only tossing that last term in there to highlight the absurdity of replacing 'I' with the word 'we'.
Please feel free to 'go on there' because from the sounds of things... you apparently have a lot to say on the subject matter at hand. As for 'why' I would think that you want to remove the Rewards Pool... how could I draw any other conclusion given all the facts at hand?
This was supposed to be posted with this account but i was working on this project and didn't change the account name when i wrote this.
Maybe what is needed is a reworking of the rewards system as opposed to doing away with them.
If the concept is "proof of brain", then perhaps rewards could be weighted by how sure we are that the action (upvote/downvote/etc) was a non-automated manual action by a living brain. This could give the edge to the brain of a minnow over the automation of a dolphin.
How might one decide if an action is a non-automated manual one? A distributed CAPCHA system was discussed somewhere in my distant archive on the Chain, if memory serves. It's an interesting programming challenge to be able to identify proof of brain while not holding up traffic.