Signing up for Hive is more difficult than it should be
I ran into a tweet by @lordbutterfly that touched on a sensitive issue that he has talked about on numerous occasions. He highlighted the problems with signing up on hive.
Even as someone that has been around the platforms for a while, the signup process still gives me a headache.
If signing up is tedious for me, imagine how stressful and overwhelming it will be for a new person trying to get involved.
For what it's worth, I know that we have a lot of opportunities on the Hive network. However, a new user doesn't know that.
In fact, if someone were to randomly search for "incentivised social media" or something like that, then finds us. It will take a very patient human being to even find where to signup, talkless of sticking around and exploring.
On a personal level, I have had this conversation with a number of people that complain about how difficult it is to get started. It is always one thing or the other, and most times, they just bail.
I remember someone trying to access ecency and then facing the "low IP quality" issue. Other times it is hiveonboard that isn't working.
So many options yet so few
It's true that there are numerous ways to signup on hive. Virtually every dapp that exists offers an account creation function these days.
The problem is that while each platform is doing great work, most new users don't know anything beyond what's in front of them.
Yeah, there will be crypto bros signing up as well that know what hive and blockchain as a whole are about.
However, the larger population have no clue about blockchain technology, they know nothing about databases and how the Dapps on-chain are interconnected, so they get overwhelmed.
For normies, it's just a social network that doesn't censor their content. However, that incentive means nothing to them if the signup process is tedious.
Making security easy
For anyone that has been on hive for a while, your security is your priority and you know exactly what to do. However, sometimes, I feel like people should be given a chance to decide if that's what they want.
Many people are used to simple email signups and login with password. This makes it much easier to manage and they feel safer knowing they can retrieve their password if they forget it.
Introducing a custodian approach of keeping keys will make hive extremely attractive for many new users. We'll also have even better user retention.
On numerous occasions, I've known of people that misplaced their wallet keys. I have a friend who lost all but his private posting key and at the time, he didn't even realise he fucked up.
The point is that while the crypto mantra for security is "every man for himself", I think that as a community, we should be looking into creating a way around it.
Perhaps through the database, we can allow people to provably decide whether or not they will like their keys onchain. Whenever their keys are onchain, they simply login with their username/email and simple password.
At the time of writing, Leofinance has hacked it and they've created numerous ways to access hive. Right now, you can easily signup for Leo in three clicks through metamask, Twitter and even Facebook, if I'm not mistaken.
Here's the thing though, this only grants access to Leofinance. And as I said, most normies don't have the time or patience to figure out how Leofinance is connected to 3speak and what not.
In fact, even people that have been on hive for a while aren't necessarily aware of the connections onchain. On a couple of occasions, people with hive accounts have asked me how to create a Splinterlands or 3Speak account, oblivious of the fact that their current account grants them access.
We want different but similar
I don't know the tech side of it and I haven't spoken to devs but considering Leofinance is already doing it, there's definitely a way to achieve it.
As I mentioned though, Leofinance is a side project and a community, so most users that signup through Leo don't even realise they have access to a wide array of Dapps onchain.
I believe that on the top layer, we can create a way to achieve this. Whether it is through the DHF or some resource credit pooling upgrade to the chain.
If we're working with the DHF then we can all vote on a proposal that will mint millions of account creation tokens then distribute it on request to any front end that people signup from.
Alternatively, we can also just fork hive to give us more control of our resource credit and then the system deducts RC from our post rewards that will go into account creation tokens.
These are just suggestions off the top of my head. I haven't considered the complexities of achieving them.
The point is that we need to offer people something similar to the norm, even if we're different. Let people decide if they want their keys or not.
If they don't want their keys, let them be stored in a database that can only be accessed with their customised password.
If they forget their password, then a simple forgot password query links to the necessary route to their account keys again and grants them access.
Complex problems often require complex solutions. If we finally hack it and solve this problem, I believe that we'll be taking a giant leap in the right direction.
Contact & Support
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