RE: @music account
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Hive whales may not have the ability to steal an account name/login, but they do have the ability to render accounts unviable through downvoting and other methods.
In that sense, the situation on Hive really isn't that much different to X.
If Elon Musk were to buy up enough Hive he could replicate the general effects of some of his 'unfriendly' tactics on X relatively easily.
(I think it's important to point out that Musk appointed a World Economic Forum stooge as the CEO, so the chances of him genuinely caring about free speech and transparency seem to be on a par with Justin Sun).
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They do not have this power: or rather they do not have this power without the consensus of all the frontends that support this exact type of behavior. To say that they hold this power alone is incorrect.
This is also just so blatantly incorrect that I feel like you're just playing Devil's Advocate at this point. Like... no... he can't buy that much Hive. No, he won't buy that much Hive. No, even if he buys that much Hive he can't do the thing that you are saying. Even if he could do the thing you are saying it's a gross exaggeration to claim that it would be "relatively easy". Like, come on: you're being ridiculous. There's is a zero percent chance that this is a correct assessment on an objective logical level.
It's extra funny that you bring up Justin Sun, which is yet more proof that you're wrong in the idea that a billionaire can just pop in and do whatever they please. It's already been proven otherwise in the field within the simulation. It's not even speculation anymore.
You know I know exactly what you're saying. I'm no stranger to downvotes or flag wars and all kinds of drama that goes along with it. I will always come at this network from a developer's ideology, and developers on Hive are untouchable if they build a robust product. This has been shown in many ways including simply minting a new token that the old-guard has no control over, but on a very real level all that matters is that anyone can post immutable data to the chain with RCs alone, and that has yet to be censored in any way (except on frontends that choose to use the "reputation" mechanic on purpose to deboost downvoted content). The point is that any application that doesn't require curation or simply chooses to ignore the "reputation" code completely sidesteps all of that, rendering your argument completely null and void.
I am a professional developer and systems engineer, but also perform numerous marketing and business tasks for clients that generally relate to Web 3 and decentralisation - so I'm not speaking here as someone ignorant of the mechanics involved.
No-one uses raw block explorers to view the blockchain outside of needing to check certain unusual details or timestamps.. for the most part. While the potential censorship effects of the downvotes are affected heavily by the decisions taken by UI designers, the reality is that the best known UIs still rank content by reward payout and also soft censor by reputation. So from a market sentiment perspective (the average user's take on Hive), the issue is real and puts off a lot of people. Over 90% of the people I have met that I have told Hive about will not use it due to this - as I have explained many times, there is a very well established (Scientifically) fact from the world of marketing psychology - the limiting effect of fear of losing something is far greater than the excitement generated when there is a sense of gaining something.
Additionally, as I have pointed out many times - downvote nuking can and has meant that accounts cannot receive any rewards at all - potentially forever. This makes the account unviable on it's own since the account will not receive much visibility, is hugely hampered in it's ability to grow and will not be rewarded financially in the ways the account's competitors are rewarded, meaning the person likely has less capacity to produce content and may well likely give up anyway.
Hive is a community, no-one wants to give their energy to a community where they feel exploited. A sense of exploitation can come simply from comparing to others who don't have the problems you have as a result of the actions of other accounts.
X is not immune from a similar problem, they continue to pay out financial rewards to some accounts and not to others, who by their own standards should be being paid significantly. Musk also 'promised' a transparency dashboard before launching Blue/Premium that would show all shadowbanning data.. It never appeared, but the shadowbanning continues, that now results in an extra way that people are being deceived in the amount of money they are paid. This skews the information on the networks, skews public perception on targeted topics and is quite possibly one of the reasons that people who control these networks are attracted to do so in the first place. Ultimately, money is just a way to get other people to do what you want. If you can do that just by skewing a social network then why not? (if you are a psychopathic scoundrel).
I think basic maths disagrees with you. Musk has an alleged 250+ billion, plus could obviously leverage a lot more. The market cap of Hive is $173.7M according to coinmarketcap.com. I think it's fairly self explanatory how he could buy enough Hive to control the network, given that a huge amount of HP enables positioning of witnesses and therefore the shaping of the blockchain code. His wealth would also mean it would be simple enough to build advanced UIs, maybe even integrate it into X. How many whales do you think would resist a huge payout and the thought that Hive would go mainstream? Some, but not all.
Some of the negative effects I am pointing to on X already exist on Hive anyway. He would not be able to spy on people's private data without re-engineering Hive, that is true - but there are other problems he could introduce here.
It depends on what you are comparing to. If you are comparing to the difficulty of building a rocket to Mars or a world leading electric car company, then I'd say it's relatively easy. Social networking software isn't rocket science. I actually think it is relatively easy when compared to other problems in system engineering that many people have already solved.
Justin Sun did do exactly what he wanted with Steem and continues to as far as I am aware. All accounts on Steem then became compromised in that sense. Yes, the project was forked, but it lost it's market position, it's visibility and it's steam. You are presenting a strawman here anyway, because I didn't say that Musk could 'do whatever he wants', I said "he could replicate the general effects of some of his 'unfriendly' tactics on X".
Yes, there will be a % of the community that decides to fork the technology and carry on with a new chain/brand. However, that doesn't negate the reality that Musk can very likely make changes here if he wants. Whatever he is or isn't, he is not as dumb as Justin Sun, so I could foresee a heavily strategised and PR managed move to redirect Hive over time being possible. I don't actually think it will happen, but it's certainly not as impossible as you are projecting here.
Yes, UIs can exist on Hive that don't monetise content and that don't involve curation, but speaking as someone who has coded their own social network and that has worked with numerous investors, entrepreneurs, marketplaces and audiences - I am pretty clear that without those features, there are vastly better options to build on than Hive. The non censorship features are valuable, but the majority of people aren't excited by them at this point and this is to the point where Hive's directing individuals typically try to act as if this feature doesn't even exist and shouldn't be used to sell the network.
I am speaking from the standpoint of what it takes to make Hive grow to the point where it can change the world, rather than from the standpoint of what it takes to technically have a running network with a few thousand users.