I have been part of this ecosystem for nearly 10 years. I began on the legacy chain in July of 2016. So to say I am loyal to Hive is an understatement. I love Hive and I desperately want it to reach its full potential and be a raging success.
I have been kicking around an idea for quite a while. I wonder if it can help increase the demand for Hive and Hive Power. I left this as a comment on a DHS proposal a few days ago but it was already more than 24 after it had been posted so I doubt very many people saw it. I figured I'd post it here in hopes of it catching more eyes and leading to more feedback.
It seems that for many years, our community has focused on attracting content producers to Hive by essentially saying “come blog here and earn.” But that seems to have resulted in mainly attracting other creators rather than actual audiences.
Would it be more effective to instead focus on bringing over an active audience by recruiting small to mid-sized content creators (who already have an audience of a couple thousand people but can’t monetize it well on YouTube) and pay them from the DHF, but only on the condition that they actively bring their audience over and get them to power up on Hive? It is important to note, I am not suggesting these creators be paid with upvotes. That does not seem to work. This is a guaranteed payment from the DHF... if they fulfill the requirements of a specific agreement.
In that model, the creator wouldn’t just be paid for posting—they would be paid for performance, specifically:
If the creator doesn’t deliver on those outcomes, they don’t receive the full payment.
This would shift Hive from “paying creators to post” to “paying creators to build active communities,” where the creator is directly responsible for:
Essentially, instead of advertising Hive to creators, we would be paying creators to bring their audience into Hive and activate them.
I'm not talking about bringing anyone huge over. How about just YouTubers who only have rabid 1000 fans? They make basically nothing. For a few hundred dollars a month in HBD, I bet they would migrate their audience to Hive. And if each audience member just bought and powered up 50 Hive, that is 50,000 Hive. And if we found 10 such YouTubers, that's 500,000 powered up Hive.
The Creator-Led Growth Model on Hive
When content creators come to Hive, it’s not just about posting content—it becomes their responsibility to attract their audience, keep them engaged, and actively convert them into powered-up participants. The creator is effectively running a community system where growth depends on how well they consistently guide their audience into participating and powering up.
Powered-up users should feel like they aren’t just “supporters”—they are the creator’s inner community with direct access, influence, recognition, and experiences no one else gets.
Core Psychology of Audience Members (What they want)
Status (I matter here) Access (I see things others don’t) Attention (the creator notices me) Participation (I influence outcomes) Belonging (I’m part of the inner group)
Examples of Creator Actions To Give The Audience What They Want
Status
Access
Participation
Belonging
Fun & Games
Financial Incentive (Curation + Engagement Model)
The financial layer is simple and intentional:
Users are encouraged to power up because it increases their ability to earn curation rewards from voting.
The creator can also upvote comments from powered-up users, allowing them to earn from participating in the discussion.
Powering up strengthens participation, because users are now directly rewarded for being active and engaging with the content.
When users vote and engage, they are also effectively rewarding the creator for producing the content, reinforcing a feedback loop where both sides benefit from activity. (They feel good that they are giving a "thank you" to their favorite content creator. They feel important.)
This creates a system where:
While there are still some technological and front-end improvements that could make this smoother long-term, the key point is that Hive already has everything needed to start testing this model immediately.
A popular content creator can already post on Hive. The comment section already exists and can function as the core community hub. Users can already power up, vote, and earn curation rewards.
That means this isn’t a future idea dependent on new infrastructure… it’s something that could be implemented and tested tomorrow using what already exists, with the creator-led community layer built directly on top of the current system.
