Hey, hey, it's Friday! Unfortunately that does not mean going to the pub and getting out and about these days. We have to be content with amusing ourselves at home as we sit out this pandemic. I hope everyone is okay and that things are improving, especially if you have not been able to get out much.

The Hive sites are getting some traffic now and rank about Steemit on Hive account@stateofthedapps. That obviously takes more than just users into account.

We do need to get more people using Hive. We need to make it a better place to be than Steem was. That means getting rewards where they are earned. There is very little vote buying going on here, but some big accounts do self-vote a lot (see below). Meanwhile on Steem things are getting worse with trending dominated by paid votes on posts that have little or no interaction.

I am still powering down my Steem. HIVE is worth a little less than Steem, so my HP could go up nicely. Could I reach orca by the time my power down completes? I am still earning a little Steem from posts, comments and curation. I may leave some there so I can use the account if I feel like it.

Hive Rocks

I thought I would focus on music for this week's #FollowFriday.

• Hive account@theplunge has had other accounts on Steem. He is instigating some music challenges on Hive that include a new open mic called the Covid Sessions and also a collaboration to make a song. I have entered the former, but not looked into the latter yet.
• Hive account@cabelindsay is also doing an open mic which I have entered. I have plenty of songs I can record and I welcome any excuse to play.
• I found Hive account@montycashmusic via these challenges. He has some cool original songs.
• Hive account@partitura offers something a little different in the form of organ music. I want to see all forms of music here.
• Hive account@recording-box operates a studio and is posting about some recording sessions they have done. I need to check those out to see what I can learn.

The doghouse

I am going to feature a well established user of Steem and now Hive called KingsCrown. I have not paid too much attention to him before, but I know his posts do well. That is in part due to him awarding himself multiple self-votes each day using a large amount of leased SP/HP. He could make more than me even without doing this if people are going to vote for him anyway. I do note that some of his posts get no comments at all, so is it just a matter of chasing curation rewards?

I downvoted a few of his posts to cancel out a little of his unearned rewards along with many others and got some retaliatory downvotes in return. I assume that is to try and deter me from doing this again, but I do not back down to bullies. They need to be called out for their actions.

Note that he is also voting up his posts on Steem, some of which are the same, so he has a nice income from this. Some of the Steem posts are just a Youtube music video, so there was almost zero effort involved. He has other accounts that he uses to increase his income.

I am not downvoting on Steem any more as I am reducing my investment there and do not care too much what happens to it since the hostile takeover. If Steemit are happy to let this behaviour continue then they will struggle to get credibility. This is why I think the Hive community should act to produce a better distribution of rewards that is more about what the community like. That can help counter arguments that it is all self-serving.

Update: Hive account@azircon breaks down how he operates and has cancelled out those flagd. Thanks.

It is up to us what Hive becomes.

Please share your own #FollowFriday suggestions in comments or a post. If you know people who want a Hive account then I may be able to help as I have claimed a load of accounts using RCs. I will delegate to people with a proven track record of creating good content on other platforms.

Hive five!