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Hive, Beyond decentralization - Can We Get More Social?

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@gandhibaba
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Let me remind the reader that Hive came into existence as a protest against the perceived centralization of the Steem blockchain in the hands of Justin Sun, the new sheriff in town. In short, the essence of Hive's existence was to give back governance to the community while saving if from the burden of the Naija-mined stake. The idea was that, going forward, Hive was the way to go.

Although it might appear too early to say it, yet there is no gainsaying the fact that Hive is turning out to be an excellent platform. Over the past few days, we've had many guys and great projects moving over to Hive. Above all, we've overseen the return of governance to the community even as the new Hive token continues to outperform Steem. Indeed, it's a new lease of life.

However, what should lie beyond decentralization? The answer, methinks, is getting more social. The truth is that the average, nontechnical user of Hive will not really care about who controls the blockchain. But he is very likely going to care about one thing, that is, how social can Hive get. He is likely to care about the extent to which the Hive community interacts with him, the extent to which he feels at home.

To be candid, it is not a coincidence that the mainstream social media sites continue to enjoy unimaginable patronage from the masses who create free contents and get zero compensation for their efforts. Yet, the same user gets bored on decentralization social media such as Hive and Steemit that reward users for using it. What are the mainstream social media companies doing right? They've built an addictive system under the guise of getting social.

This is why millions of people each day log into their Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc accounts just so that they can satisfy their natural craving for being social since man is a social animal. In the process of satisfying this need, our generation becomes unfortunately entangled in a web of dangerous addiction.

What we've seen on Steem and has been transferred to Hive is the bad culture of almost everyone eyeing the money while ignoring the vast majority of the people who struggle to make decent posts that never get deserving rewards. The guy who is left out becomes aggrieved and frustrated, believing that life on the blockchain is like a dog-eat-dog scenario. He consequently abandons his account and never looks back.

Only one person has left, you might want to argue, but that one person has the potential to block ten or more people from trying out Hive. It is one of the reasons why we need to fix the social aspect of Hive because that is the only one thing that guarantees loyalty.

In fixing the social aspect of Hive, we must not forget to make content discovery seamless. We could have a way to aggregate related topics. This will boost engagement and make the discovery of authors and contents incredibly easier than we have ever seen on any known blockchain.

Not only that, the various communities and curation projects on Hive must do their best in engaging with their members, so that we don't have people who feel that they are not loved. If Hive is able to offer rewards and unlock its social aspect, there is only on path ahead - progress.

Until I come your way again, I wish you a full Hive ahead.