5 Things I Like About Hive

Just like Darwin's theory of evolution, just like the generational changes we observe in society, the Digital content also undergoes evolution, but when you arm it with Blockchain technology it becomes revolution, further, when you specify it as Hive Blockchain it appears as a thriving decentralized economy in the social media space which tells us a story of how we read it, how we write it and how we own it and ultimately how we govern it & governed by it.

I have been quite familiar with Hive Blockchain since 2018. Although I do not regularly produce content, I do engage with it on a daily basis. So I do have my own understanding of this Blockchain and from my experiences, today I will pen down what are those 5 things that I like the most about Hive.

(1) Immutable content

Immutability is one of the fundamental features of Blockchain. Blockchain is a protocol or the sub-structure on the top of which the dApps thrive and through dApps we actually interact with the Blockchain.

Since Hive is a permissionless Blockchain it is open to everyone, anyone can participate and build a dApp to cater to a particular use case.

There are so many dApps we interact with on a daily basis, viz, Ecency, Leofinance, Peakd, Hive, etc, and many more. We have the features: Publish, Edit, Delete, etc in all these frontends. We can produce content, edit it or delete it. You might ask now, how could you say it is immutable then?? The answer is still YES, it is immutable as immutability is a fundamental feature of Blockchain, so regardless of whether such a feature is available in a frontend or not, that content is permanently recorded in Blockchain. So yes, you can retrieve your content any time you want, and not just you, anyone can retrieve the content.

Immutability in the social sphere makes the social space and its use-case all-inclusive and comprehensive. Gone are the days when we use social media just for chatting, it is much more stratified than ever to the extent that when we look upon it, social engagement looks like just one of the numerous use-cases of social media.

Therefore immutability is a parameter that makes social media transparent and business-friendly within the domain of social media. Think about carrying out a business transaction, a deal or a loan, or a contract that you want to sign with your counterpart without the aid of a third party, can you cater to such a use-case without immutable content? Certainly NO. The counterpart is binding upon what he agrees to and signs a contract, because of immutability. So I think immutable social media platform like Hive has expanded the horizon of socializing and it has aided an important dimension of commercial space of socializing.

(2) Niche by Niche communities

Let's take the example of any other social media, which is not based on Blockchain, where there is no concept of niche or niche communities, where only one dApp exists which we access and interact with.

We all have lived with social media like Facebook, Medium, Reddit and so many others until Blockchain-based social media offered the choice of censorship-resistant blogging.

With traditional social media, we are familiar with tags, we also use tags in Hive. That is the way to trace the content. But tags are kind of seasonal stuff, they never become perennial by and large. It is also difficult to keep a track of thousands of tags. The second important point is that tags have a limited scope of resources in the context of curation and second-layer economy.

Hive Blockchain has posited the idea of the niche by niche communities technically, as a result, the users and developers are not shackled by the rigidity of the protocol, neither any scope of censorship instill a sense of fear among the users. Anyone can run a dApp atop Hive Blockchain and any one case access it and produce content.

Niche by niche communities means there are individual silos, which are dedicated to a particular type of content, and the tags are now subservient to these niches. That means the same content can be channelized for other silos/niches through the use of appropriate tags, however, you can trace the origin of creation, in other words, you get to know in which dApp it is created.

Having niche by niche communities also means that you have dedicated resources for that community to curate and you also gain access to second layer economy.

For example, you produce content in Leofinance, and alongside you also use other tags like neoxian, or any other tags, so not just you potentially earn HIVE tokens(the native token of Hive Blockchain), but also you earn the second layer tokens like LEO, NEOXAG, etc. Other than that you are likely to be curated by the resources of a particular community subject to the quality of the content and overall acceptance.

So the evolution of tags into the "niche by niche" communities is possible with Blockchain-based social media like Hive and in that context, Hive foreruns the expanse of tokenized social media with the concept of Primary+Second layer economy.

(3) Time-tested Decentralized Governance

When we talk about Hive, we count its age from Mar 2020, but its genesis dated back to 2016 as a Blockchain. The Blockchain rebranding as Hive(forking out from Steem) is a metaphor for upholding Decentralzied Governance. If History in the coming decades ever would recall the precedent of decentralized Governance, then Hive will be the front runner as a classic example of a case in point.

See, the point is everything can be so perfect and mesmerizing in code. There are developers who can best produce well-written code, true to the decentralized ethos of a Blockchain. But the real test of a code also factors in who are the witnesses who run it, and who are those elected representatives. Are they also true to the spirit of decentralization?

So I personally believe that in Decentralized Governance, there are two components:- Biotic and Abiotic.

• Abiotic- Code( Non-living being, it is not affected by emotions)
• Biotic- Witnesses( Living beings, they can be corrupted)

A code that hitherto runs well, in good standing with decentralization, might go corrupt & get manipulated if it falls into the hand of corrupt witnesses.

The fusion of code, and the witnesses who run it make the decentralized governance. And in DPoS Governance where stake plays a big role to manipulate, the decentralzied Governance needs more check and balance. But from 2016 up till now, Hive has stood the test of time.

In 2020, during a hostile takeover, the witnesses stood by morale in line with what Blockchain stands for, and forked out and rebranded the new chain as Hive.

Why this is important for me. This is important because every time I wanna make a decision to invest I will weigh upon the precedent of Hive-- Has it confiscated the private assets of any user? If No, then it will instill a sense of confidence, I would not feel insecure. Similarly, if I am to produce content in Hive, I should not have a fear of being censored on any given day.

(4) Continuous Development, a Hallmark of an evolving society-- Hive

The very basic feature of any digital site is its dynamism. It's also a psychological play for the end users. The dead and static websites always die their natural death.

So if we just consider it as software or a website, the standard approach should always be to improve the UI and UX features of the site.

When we consider Hive as a comprehensive Blockchain-based social media platform, it requires both qualitative and quantitative measures from Layer 0, to Layer 1, Layer 2, etc. These quantitative and qualitative measures are popularly knowns as Hardforks.

In 2020 we forked out with HF 23, and now we are at HF26. So in between this period, we have undergone many changes to make it more adaptive to the broader crypto environment. For instance, we dont need the reverse auction window anymore which somehow resulted in the frontrunning of bots, the trending page of Hive is more organic than ever because bot use is cost-prohibitive in Hive.

Simillarly, HBD with 20% APR is perfect DeFi stuff for the Hive users. If capital flows into HBD because of lucrative APR, then it is also going to help HIVE. The upcoming hardfork will also enable the delegation of resource credits, which might create a new marketplace of RCs.

So fine-tuning the various parameters in tune with the needs of the end users and in line with the macroeconomics of the broader crypto market is what we always need because crypto has already gained sufficient traction, it's all set for take-off. Continuous development is always taken as a signal for a healthy economy, Hive is structurally more nuanced and with each successive hard forks, Hive has positively iterated its unabated commitment to continuous development.

(5) Web 3.0 feature

Blockchain from the get-go is web 3.0 conducive. Why? Because Blockchain fundamentally is permissionless, open source, decentralized, ubiquitous, and accessible to anyone.

The entire digital space including the traditional social media platform regardless of their penetration rate and popularity at some point will be forced to implement the web 3.0 features and if they do so, they have to make some modifications and changes to adapt to web 3.0 features. Blockchain from the get-go is web 3.0 friendly, so Blockchain from the outset offers that environment of ownership of data. That absolute ownership also reshapes tokenization and governance. Think about Hive, it is not just a token, it is a governance token also because using your stake you are being able to participate in voting and you could elect your representative, and you could also vote a proposal.

Think about the Hive keychain which in itself is a dApp, with the use of smart contract we interact with the dApps, and it is the web 3.0 features that make possible the sophisticated use case, and that is how it motivates Layer 2, Layer 3 application where the complex use-cases are executed through a smart contract and it becomes easy for the end user to use one profile to access all services available in a particular network. Also your approach shifts from a password-based system to key-based system.

Efficiency, Transparency, Consistency of operation, and most importantly data privacy and ownership of data are the attributes of web 3.0 features, Hive is already web 3.0 from the outset. Therefore it is frontrunning the web 3.0 use case in digital space from day one.