Have You Made Yourself Useful?

I was told yesterday that instead of spending my time on Hive, I could have made more money investing into other tokens. That is undeniable. However, where else in crypto could I have what I have here? A place where I can satisfy my desire to write about topics that are important to me, engage with users, make friends, be part of processes, have the opportunity to earn a bit and importantly for me - provide opportunity for others to earn too.

Where - precisely?

This is why I wrote the post how the unfortunate focus on money as when money becomes the concept of value, all of the other aspects that enrich our lives are left by the wayside. So many people seem to be searching for meaning and purpose, yet they don't seem to get very far past trying to make more money. Perhaps that is meaning for some of course - but is it a good life?

I don't know. I like to generate value too and quite enjoy discussing various aspects of it on and off chain, in discords and WhatsApp and wherever - but there is quite a difference to making more buying some other tokens and that is, it is social. The reason I enjoy it isn't because I am building my wealth, it is because we are building our wealth.

I brought this up with a friend the other day who I think I have helped generate quite a bit of wealth for them over the last couple years, just through discussion and building understanding about crypto then, now and in the future. This is information I already hold and use, so the only benefit in having these discussions for me is to refine my own understanding and hopefully get some additional perspective. Overall though, it is a net loss for me in terms of the interaction, as because many of these discussions are had in small groups of other people who are skeptical, all I get out of it is ridiculed.

I am okay with that as payment.

In general, people act in accordance with their peer groups, trying to fit in and get along. While they fantasize about having different, they fail to realize that acting like everyone else is why they can't, because doing average is going to get average results and, when everyone is doing it, there is no market competitive advantage. The trick is of course the concept behind "buy low", which is, be where the people are going to be, not where they are now.

Buying low, is possible because of this reason, because if everyone has already bought, it is no longer low and there is not as far left to whatever top there might be. If this is the situation now and everyone is already in, then one has to look for where they are going to move to next. Where do you think they are going to move?

Ah, this is the thing - many people are looking for the next Meme coin like people have been looking for the next Bitcoin, but that is not where the industry is going to go, it is just a little oddity along the way. Utility will be the end-goal for all industries and that is where the vast majority of the value will be generated, in the same way that all industries have developed in the past. Once the value is in usecase, then it starts to be considered mature and the development will look to fill market gaps, compete directly in usecase and efficiency and if possible, add new usecases that haven't been explored yet - which gives rise to inefficiencies and new opportunities.

If you are looking "long" on crypto and still don't have a basic understanding of how industries lifecycles mature. you aren't actually looking long - because this is an industry. What many think looking long is related to is how long they are going to hold a token for - but holding a a token is useless if that token is useless. This is why Splinterlands cards will have some value as long as people are playing it, because playing is a usecase. Hive will always have some value because, it has multiple usecases and they satisfy more than just the desire to earn "money".

I can't speak for anyone else, but for me at least, while I have to live a life, pay bills and try to provide opportunity for my family, having money alone isn't enough for me to consider my life valuable. Even if I had all I could ever want and need, if I am not doing something useful I am not living a valuable life. At least for me, this is very clear -

I have to provide utility.

Not everyone is going to agree with this, but I have found through my own experience and plenty of interaction, that the most content people, tend to be the ones that feel useful to others, and this affects every level of experience. People who can't look after themselves, meaning they aren't useful for themselves, tend to feel unhappy. People who don't feel appreciated for what they do in a relationship, tend to feel unhappy. People who don't add any value to their peer group, tend to be unhappy. People who don't do anything for the community, tend to be unhappy.

As said, you can disagree, but my observations of who are the most bitter and disappointed with conditions, tend to be those who don't actually add much value. Some, will even find ways to explain that they are actually adding value, but if they were, *they would be appreciated for it - but they aren't, so they complain even more. On Hive I see this a lot, where the people who complain the most about the reward structure, tend to be the people who are the least willing and able to add value to others - but they justify that their offerings of complaint are the value. Nope - complaints are given freely.

What I think is, many people know that what they do in this world is largely meaningless and has no real value, so they try to justify their activity in other ways. "When I am rich, I will give..." Why?

Why not build a world where people can get rich at the same time as giving?

That is how I see Hive and it isn't a 1:1 process, it is a community collaboration that generates all kinds of value and increasingly, brings more opportunity to those who might not have had much earlier. A lot of people think that the value is the reward o the post, but that is not it at all. It is being part of a community that values building an alternative economy that can support an increasingly large amount of people, by providing the tools and opportunity for individuals to build for themselves.

Upvotes come and go, but when a person has a process of personal and societal improvement, they will inevitably find ways to bring value to those who are willing to pay for it. This is the marketplace, this is business, this is valuable, because it has utility. It is a supply and demand world, but at the end of the day, buying and selling tokens doesn't actually do anything of value, it just creates a tool that can be used. Many people seem intent on continually stacking into tokens, but at some point, demand will shift to the places where there is more to earn than money.

So many people seem to be looking for a place in their world, yet all they do is keep making themselves irrelevant, because their activity doesn't help anyone other than themselves. I think over the last two decades, the technology and economy -driven segmentation and isolation has been quite extreme and now, what we are seeing is response that ties community to economy in a direct way, melding value and interaction like it has never been before. Massive amounts of value are going to be generated in the decentralized economy, but utility is still going to be at its core.

Build where the people are going to be. If you can't build, invest into those who are.

Make yourself useful. Earn on it.

Taraz [ Gen1: Hive ]