Hive has ruined me

It's the truth, and I'm not going to hide it, Hive ruined me.

I can no longer interact in other social media without feeling like I'm wasting my time and pushing my inspiration to write down the drain whenever I have to think of something witty as a reply to a comment on reddit, and I can't help but feel like I could be doing something else every single time I'm searching for relevant tweets or when I'm trying to compose a tweet.

But that's the life, we are still living in a society that loves centralized entities, that follows the big-tech's lead, that idolizes mainstream social media influencers, that get's their news from illiterate, mediocre and biased accounts, that does their own research where the bulk of the population roams.

Did you actually thought I meant that Hive ruined me for real?

Nope. Hive ruined me because I can no longer use traditional social media without feeling like my content is used to fill the owner's pockets - because I know that is exactly what is happening - and every interaction I have in those places, plays a role towards their plan of fully controlling the means of information, just like they've done for the past millennia, and just how it will continue to happen until I die - unless a total change of mindset happens in the majority of the population, so yeah, until I die.

Over the past few days I've been very active on Reddit and Twitter, promoting Leo Finance and Hive, trying to find good tweets and posts to engage with and start a conversation that can easily bring out Leo or Polycub, Hive or Blockchain. But in order to do so, you have to consume a crapton of worthless, shilly, biased and ultimately stupid content, just to find that little piece of gold among the shit stack.

And once you find that needle hidden in the haystack which by the way, is all smeared with actual poop, then you have to research the project or whatever the topic they are talking about so you can actually have an organic and real conversation. Then you have to think of a way to reply, because it has to be something that catches their attention and that attracts users passing by, and then you have to redact it in a way that keeps the reader interested and so they don't stop reading halfway through.

The attention economy is hard, man, and I can't help but feel that every time I am writing something over Reddit, I could be composing a post on Hive or Leo and I could be earning tokens in return, instead of just helping Zuckerboy or Jack Soyrsey further on their agenda - or the government's for that matter.

And I mean, how can I not feel this way if I have written posts like this one, just to start a conversation and be able to let people know about Hive or Leo?

When I started my blogging journey, I opened a .blogspot website where I didn't have to spend money setting things up, and I could just start blogging without worrying about the details of having a domain, a host, setting up wordpress etc etc, I just wanted to blog and I wanted to do it easily. In the end, my goal was to start writing, which is something I had wanted to do since I was on the young side. It was a success, I was writing a couple of blog entries per week and I got pretty good at it, at least according to the few people who read my posts (thanks mom and aunts lol). Fast forward a few years to 2016. I wanted to travel long term and I wanted to write about it (yeah, pretty fresh, another travel blog, but this was 2016, not everyone and their grandma had a blog back then). I was older, I could handle more complexity, so I bought a website, learned how2wordpress, hosted the site in hostgator and so on, I was ready to blog and maybe even get some ad revenue or start a youtube channel or something - remember, this was 2016. My drive died faster than what an apple pie lasts in a house with kids. I didn't have an audience, I didn't have the time to build one (I was traveling) and there was no reward whatsoever, not even in the form of karma or pinkies. But then around 3 months into traveling, I heard about tokenized blogging platforms such as Hive and Leo Finance, and I said well, what the hell, I am a good writer already and I have tons of content to upload, I'm pretty much generating a new story every day because I explore one thing per day and when I finish exploring the location, I move around again. I began to blog on Hive and after a few posts, I caught the attention of many users who reblogged my posts and engaged with me and I was even getting tokens in the process. At the beginning I was just happy with the engagement and the feedback, that's what any writer can wish for, but once I started to dive deeper into the website I realized these tokens had a monetary value in crypto (which I didn't know anything about back then), so the "gamification process" began and I started to write with more drive and with a goal in mind: Build an audience while seeing concrete (and valuable) results in the process. I'm happy where I am, but it obviously this blogging style has pros and cons. My question is, for those who have a tokenized blogging account, what do you think of tokenized blogging platforms? How would you compare this experience versus traditional blogging where you have a website and social media to promote it? Which one is more satisfying? And for those who don't have an account on this type of platforms, why not? Do you find it more fulfilling to have the full package with a blog, social media, SEO work, ads and so on? I'm trying to decide if I should go back to traditional blogging or if I should stay blogging for tokens and missing out on ads and the social media part. What's your take?

Imagine writing all that and getting this message from a bot moderator, right after I clicked "post":

Just because I don't have enough magic internet beans.

I found myself striving to farm reddit points to be able to post on highly moderated communities where the big shit is happening - or so they claim - but in order to get those magic beans, I have to be able to post, but I can't post because I don't have the beans... you get the point.

Then you have to keep searching for communities that actually allow new users to post, but also aren't dead and deserted, and after getting a post ready and published, you get these numbers:

Almost two thousand impacts, but only 3 upvotes, or pinkies, or karma, or whatever they are called, and it seems like I got 5 positive points but I also got 2 negative points... like, what?

So I have to post good crap, but also be lucky enough so my post gets read by people who like the post in order to farm this karma points, because I need it to post in other subreddits. Oh man, mainstream social media is hard, and the virtue signaling is appalling. Not that modding a community is negative, but damn is reddit weird.

Don't get me wrong, I am not nagging about the fact that I have to browse Twitter or Reddit, because I am actually learning a lot and I'm more than happy to do what I'm doing, it's just that I can't help but feel like my place is in decentralized social platforms like Leo and Hive, not on centralized platforms with power blinded moderators that don't have anything better to do. The problem is, 99% of the potential hive and leo userbase lives on Reddit and Twitter.

And to think that these people interact like this for free on a daily basis, in exchange of magic reddit beans or little red worthless hearts, instead of putting their content up on a blockchain that rewards users via tokenized allocation of true magic beans that are actually worth something.

What's even more hilarious, is that most of the replies I get, are from paid shills that are doing the same as I am - but I am in the right side of the equation, or so I like to think so:

Reddit is a great way to reach potential Leo and Hive users, and I'm pretty sure I'll get the hold of it sooner rather than later, but in the meantime, I find these mainstream platforms a tad dull and worthless.

But hey, it is where mass adoption lies, it is where most of our userbase spend their free time, so we have to reach out to them, we have to tell them what they are missing out, we gotta open their eyes, even if it takes farming karma like an idiot instead of harvesting votes, tokens and reputation while receiving worthy feedback and having interesting conversations over here, where the true decentralization and free speech lies.

Hive Ruined me. Hive ruined me for traditional social media engagement, but I am a spoiled brat because I've been here for 5 years, having margaritas at the Hive beach and playing board games and beach soccer with my Leo pals, unaware of what it happening out there in the centralized jungle.

It was about time I went back to ground zero and let others know where I've been these past few years, and when they come, I hope we all welcome them with open arms, because that's where true mass adoption lies.

_{If you have a reddit account, give me some karma, I'm u/anomadsoul over there (who else would I be, right?)}