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Is Hive ready for the masses?

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@achim03
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When you start on hive, there is a lot to take in and a lot to understand. There are so many things that you need to learn and in a way it's probably the reason why there are not more people on this blockchain.

Creating an account and dealing with keys, the first challenge

The first issue is the account creation. There are many different available solutions and some of them are free to use. In some cases, you can create an account without needing to know anything about keys. Because they keys linked to accounts are the first variable that new users struggle to understand. They are used to a single password for most of the accounts that they own. On hive you get plenty of keys and it's a challenge to know what they are all for.

RC to get going

Once the key stuff is more or less understood, a user might encounter problems to use the blockchain because he lacks RC. What is RC? How to get it? Are the next questions that have to be dealt with. The lack of RC kind of prevents new users from being very active in the early days.

Not earning a thing

If a new user managed to create a post and did some comments, he will then be confronted with the fact that his first payout will be due in a week from now. Then he might need to understand why he only gets half of it.

Well let's stop here and agree that it's challenging to get started and it's not surprising that many new users quit even before they get the first payout.

Is Hive ready for mass adoption?

When I look at what is above, I have to answer „no“ to this question. The first experience on hive is definitely not adapted for 90% of internet users out there. But we shouldn't forget that there are constantly new users joining the platform and some of them stay on it for a long time.

I would therefore say that if somebody is really interested, it's definitely possible to join hive in a successful manner. The percentage of people doing that is however pretty small. Therefore, hive is by far not adapted for mass adoption.

Is this really that bad?

To join the hive ecosystem, there is a kind of vetting system that filters users. Only the ones remain that are really committed to the blockchain and the community. Once they get the full extend of the potential of hive, they won't leave it any more. When I look at myself, there is no other platform on the internet that I'm on for close to 5 years! So once you are taken in, you stay on hive.

You need to invest time to learn about hive

Hive is complex but also pretty interesting and a new user should come with an open mind, the willingness to learn and also to be creative. Hive is not a passive platform for consumers. To be successful on hive, you need to be active, you need to create and to interact. When we take this in consideration, I believe that there are not so many people among the general population that are willing to do that. Therefore, I believe that we shouldn't target hive to the masses but we should attract the people with an entrepreneurial mind who are ready to put in some effort.

Speak to the masses to find the creators

In a way, what we saw with Splinterlands was the best possible example how hive can grow. People were attracted by a game. They got a free hive account when starting to play the game. Out of the hundreds of new accounts however, only a few started to use other parts of the hive ecosystem. I know quite a lot of people who joined Splinterlands and then started to dive into hive and now kind of reduced their gameplay to concentrate on Hive.

Thanks to dapps, hive can speak to the masses. Most people will only use the dapp in question. However, a percentage of the people will look a bit further and they will discover what lies around this dapp. The curious people will realize what amazing potential of this blockchain and thanks to these people, the blockchain will grow.

I don't believe that Hive really needs to onboard the masses because Hive is too complex for most internet users. Hive is a place for people who want to create, who want to build and who are not scared to invest some time for that. It's these people that will allow the blockchain to grow in the long run.

The masses might be attracted by the dapps and at the same time they will be a starting point for curious people among the masses to discover the rest of the hive ecosystem.

In conclusion, I would say that Hive is not ready for the masses but on the other hand the masses are also not ready for Hive either. Hive still is a niche for builders and creators.

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