Make something, break something

I think that was the smoothest hardfork I have experienced in 4.5 years and wouldn't it be brilliant if every subsequent one was similar? With the complexity involved that might be too much to ask, but the further forward we go, the more predictably stable they have to become as an increasing number of applications and business models rely on the Hive blockchain as their infrastructure.

It is also why there has to be some balance found between what is introduced, how often changes are made, increasing the importance of the early days in the hope to get things right. Nothing quite like this has been attempted before and while decentralized communities, currencies and economies are the way forward in the future, designing a flexible system that satisfies all of the needs now and in the future is no mean feat.

It is much easier to treat components as independent pieces, but this is not the way an economy works. While simpler, it is like collecting the various types of atoms that make up the human body into a box and saying it is alive - whatever alive is, it is far more complex than that.

It is also due to this complexity that there are always unintended consequences to actions, where making one move for the better, might lead to shifts for the worse and these could be stretched across time. Every change affects the dynamics of an environment and what might be working well today, could collapse or become harmful when new conditions align.

For example on Hive, while there are many opinions and approaches as to how, we are generally looking to increase the numbers of users on the platform, as it leads to more usage and therefore value of the general ecosystem. However, most people haven't considered what a large increase in userbase would mean for them in particular.

I have seen a lot of people over the years who are hoping for an increase in value of HIVE, yet do not appear to hold much HIVE, so what is the benefit for them? What is the benefit of Apple or Amazon stocks going to the moon, if you don't own any? If you think the value of HIVE is going to increase, buy, earn, trade, hold is pretty much all you should be thinking about doing with it.

But a large user base means more competition for all kinds of resources, including the reward segmentation of the pool. Increasing prices will be a boon for curators with stake of course, as they will get largely the same amount of HIVE in curation reward regardless, but the author rewards will get split further and further in terms of HIVE, even if the price increases. Wouldn't it be amazing to have 20 dollar Hive and have tens of thousands of people earning upward of 5 dollars a day on the platform, some getting hundreds, a few thousands? All while getting nowhere near as much HIVE as an author is getting now.

This is what a large user base does, it dilutes the reward pool. An increasing price may attract more users and that will drive the value of HIVE, but one still has to have Hive in order to really take full advantage of it, although many more people will actually benefit from a higher price as it will be able to support more people with a significant value.

I welcome with open arms a massive user base - but I have been preparing for years for it.

An increasing userbase would be a pro and a con depending on where you currently stand, in the same way as being an early adopter of anything can be. Some people get in early and squander their opportunity because at that stage there is so much uncertainty if effort will surmount to anything of value, while some people dig in and take the risk. If things turn out badly, a lot of people will lose very little, some lose a lot. If things turn out very well, a lot of people will gain very little, some gain a massive amount.

I was one of the earliest users of Google - I have never owned a Google share, never made any money from it. Early adopter opportunity missed? Not really, because I was a user of Google, not an investor into promising startup companies, two very different things.

Being on Hive doesn't make someone an owner other than of their account. It is up to each of us what we do with our account, it is up to us whether we buy, how we vote, behave, treat others and a host of other things - but whether and how we actually invest ourselves is up to us and it is not written into the code at all. No one forces me to buy HIVE, no one forces me to keep HIVE powered up, no one forces me to write, to vote, to earn, to use or to care at all. It is all opt-in.

It is quite an incredible system and one that I love (perhaps obviously) being a part of, as it is so dynamic, so convoluted, so uncertain and, so free. We all choose to be on Hive, choose how we act on Hive and choose whether we stay on Hive. And, while this is the case, the environment will keep shifting and changing, improving intentionally and breaking unintentionally for many years to come. In time, more communities will form, tokenized economies will be integrated, blockchains intertwined and lives connected.

If the token price does start reflecting where this community could go, every holder will be pretty happy - every one else, wishing they had some too.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]