Have you ever thought why there aren't more people here in the land of crypto earning from social interaction? A lot of people might put it down to the behavior on the platform itself or perhaps the complication, but in order to know that, they would have had to have signed up first, and they haven't. What I wonder is if there are two related factors that keep people away, or drive them away once here - the money.

Yes, that is one thing only.

Seeing too much

However, I know that a lot of people are very wary about bringing people onto the platform for many reasons, including the behaviors and complications here. However, I also think there are other factors that come into play surrounding inviting people in:

• A transparent wallet
  Having an open wallet brings in some level of judgement and perhaps even, embarrassment. If you think that most people will likely talk about the earning potential here and then have "show and tell" their wallet to the class, it might create some social resistance. One could be the fear of getting judged on size or lack thereof, another could be worrying about an expectation from friends and family for future voting. Because of these kinds of things, being somewhat anonymous here is easier and perhaps, better in some ways. Would masking the wallet help?

• Potential competition
  There is a shared pool of a specific size and the more people that compete for it, the thinner it gets spread. This means that while demand increases prices (generally) and the greater the distribution the better, an individual is likely to get less tokens when this happens. The more competition, the less token earned - but it could very well be that the value of those tokens is relatively higher, more for less. The other thing with the competition of invitees is that one has to then compete at a social and economic level with friends and family, which can be uncomfortable. I could be even worse if the invitees have very different ideals about content and interaction. What if they are a shitposter or worse, what if they are brilliant but don't get supported?

The other thing about inviting people in based on the money aspect, even if it isn't a focus of the conversation i, it is always a focus of the conversation - this is crypto and a platform that has a rewards pool and a social model that includes financial aspects.

I think that where people often go wrong is that it starts off from a point of needing money, not from the perspective of as an investor, where there is the expectation that something needs to be an input before there is an output - capital in, profits out. While it is great to be able to earn from blogging and other interactions, that should actually be secondary to the investing in with personal capital. The reason is that there has to be people willing to buy in order for the token to have salable value, and the more people that buy, the better.

While there was a lot of things wrong with the early distribution of Steem, one of the biggest issues was that people expected to earn their stake, even though there was already 120M Steem sitting on exchanges, 20% more than what had come out of the pool in the 4 years of existence - as 250 million Steem was mined in the earliest times. If we as users had been buying and powering up instead of only squabbling over a very limited rewards pool, things would have changed.

There is another factor in this. I love being able to earn from my writing - but I didn't get an investor mindset at all until I actually bought STEEM with "real" money, fiat I had earned, capital I owned and put to risk. At that point, I started learning more about the platform, investing and myself - and I will buy more HIVE over time. I encourage anyone who is looking long on Hive to actually buy some HIVE, purchase a significant amount - an amount you would be frustrated in losing, an amount you want to protect. For some, it might be 10 HIVE, for another 1 million.

Skin in the game matters.

I could do that if I wanted to

I just didn't want to.

This is the second factor that I think holds many people back from joining a social platform with an economy - fear of trying and failing - fear of social judgement. When someone comes onto Hive, they are not only going to have to put some work in, they are going to be acutely aware of their successes and failures - and for most, there will be more failure than success, especially in the early days.

When it comes to most social medias, from the first signup they make it appear that you are winning, friends are suggested, accounts to follow, realistic bots leave comments, the system rewards you with stars and trophies and other worthless and meaningless crap for getting you to fill-out personal data, flesh out their digital Cupie doll avatar of you. All of this forces encourages you to buy into their model and platform and get invested, for free - the cost is of course that any earnings you generate - go to them.

Coming into Hive is going to be met without automated welcomes if you do manage to use the right tags and then, a lot of silence. Even the most talented social media users aren't accustomed to also having to promote themselves in an ecosystem that has nearly no algorithms or automation for effective self-promotion - No, bidbots are not effective for self-promotion.

People don't like to feel judged, but they do like to compete. Gaming is a good indicator of this as it allows for the competition without exposing oneself to other gamers in an environment that judges only the gameplay, not the person. Most people understand that becoming a blogger opens oneself up to judgement from others on you, your skills, your personality and every thought and idea - one of most human's largest fears.

But here's the thing

While these factors (and many more) make onboarding and uptake slower and more difficult, the whole concept of crypto has been built around personal responsibility and control of economy. If a person is unwilling to get into the game at this stage due to factors like transparency, competition, capital investment and fear of being judged - it is probably better they don't try. Of course, anyone can try, but it really is up to them as to what kind of investments they make into the platform and experience they will have. This goes beyond the money as nearly every time, those who are here for the earnings alone burnout faster and harder than those who spend time developing their understanding, investing in and building relationships and making friends.

While mass onboarding is necessary, Hive is not a social platform like Facebook or Instagram, it is not like Patreon, Twitter or Medium - they are just surface level applications that could reside on Hive. Hive is infrastructure, pipework and the economic mechanism that empowers those kinds of apps to actually integrate their endusers into the experience by making them owners instead. Most people have so little understanding of what this means, but it changes the way the entire internet operates, and that is a place that is already integrated into all of our lives.

We are all early adopters in the startup phase and while anyone can get in and call themselves an investor, most likely do not have the mind nor stomach for what that means in an environment of high risk and uncertainty. When we look to onboard people to Hive, they need to likely be more investor than blogger as like it or not, that is the phase the startup is in and that is what is required at this point. This doesn't stop blogging and gaming and whatever else - it empowers it.

Not everyone is cutout for every game and not everyone is able to cope under all conditions. Hive is a place of many games and many conditions simultaneously and depending on how one is and which path one chooses, the outcomes can be very, very different. All inclusive doesn't mean all will be suitable for every position on the field of play.

You might not have to put your body on the line, but having skin in the game helps you stay focused.

Taraz
[ an original ]

While written for Hive, this applies to Steem also.