The little fishies must learn to swim for themselves

I wanted to say all kinds of bitter things, but I have thought better of it. I think I might even be starting to learn something. We might all be swimming in the same pool, but in here, like it would be if you landed in the wilderness, maybe it seems like there is people around you, but this is just a hallucination. They are all adapted, to some degree, to the environment they are in. I'm not going to say they are animals, because I think they are something more than human, in fact, and this platform is actually forcing people to evolve.

Maybe a better metaphor is this: let's say you grew up in New Jersey, and for some reason you have landed in the middle of rural Mongolia. Almost nothing you learned as a kid is going to help you in the dry, cold, and difficult environment of the Mongolian Steppes. This is a whole new place. It is maybe something like the old places, having some features in common with such as the blogosphere, reddit, facebook, and twitter, but it's so different in so many ways.

It certainly is not at all like the open source community, full of willing and able helpers who will, even at a dumb question that has already been asked, dutifully pop a useful link into the discussion and get you on your way. Sometimes you can be more or less slapped in the face. Just as would happen when you try to get on the back of the mongolian horse with a new friend you made, and you do something that spooks the horse and makes him throw you and your new friend off the back.

The kind of thick skin you have to acquire is not like anything you will be used to. Especially not if you are in the intent on participating in the innately disruptive software development business. In cryptos, everyone has a different attitude, because these tokens are not any more just 'nice things that make the world better'. They are money. So maybe a better metaphor might be something you would learn as a beginner trying to make a profit on some kind of equity exchange. They will take every last cent you put in, if you are dumb enough. If you openly declare that you want to implement a new system or feature attached to the system, that might impinge on their up to that point effective method of garnering a share of the profits, you can see that obviously, they won't be helpful, in fact might try to put you off doing it altogether.

I am pushing myself through on this because I don't think this kind of world is going away, in fact I think that this is somewhat how the world is turning. Right now, because it is so small, the established players are more grumpy and hostile than they will be in say, 10 years time, when this grows and becomes more of a normal community. But when everything you do, determines what part of that 150 million market cap there is, it makes people a lot more hard than even on your average street.

So, I am going to suggest, that if you are new to this, like I am, and discovering, like I am, that the competitive atmosphere is somewhat suffocating, maybe even more like trying to breath water, that you, like me, step back, and just remember.

This is not anything like what you have seen before. This is entirely new. These people, although many of them may be relative to you, quite well off economically, they may not find your sense of wonder and your ideas very amusing.

I don't mean in this to disparage anyone in the process. Even if by metrics I might be used to, such disparagement might well be deserved. But it's irrelevant. To the new fishies joining the pool, don't get discouraged by the mean people who see you as a threat to their piece of the pie that they are not getting by expanding the pool. To the contrary. The pool is quite full. This is why they are hostile. You might even think that your ideas will make the pool bigger, but in doing this, they will all have to adapt.