Unless the onboarding is good, most people will remain oblivious to the product or service you have created despite how good your creation is. This does not mean one must compromise on one's vision to achieve success. There are ways to maneuver around the obstacle. There are many projects that take user onboarding as the primary task (these are usually VC funded). HIVE has taken the exact opposite approach since inception.

The good thing is that no other blockchain social media that temporally surpassed HIVE has managed to remain sustain their success since 2016. It is almost a miracle that nobody else has beaten HIVE yet. 2023 was the worst year for HIVE since 2016. The article I wrote about how we can attempt to fix this problem has been my pinned article for six months. I am yet to see any large improvements to user onboarding. DHF is not being used to its full capacity. The silver lining is that there are few DAPPs that are helping to make HIVE an active and vibrant place.

One Onboarding Process Analyzed

Before we move further, there is one thing I have to say: Although I have studied the subject through online courses, I am not a marketing professional or UX designer. Better feedback can be found by hiring a marketing firm. All I offer is free advice because I love HIVE and have a stake in this project.

This is what I find when someone try to become a @risingstargame player without Keychain Extension. This is the only part that I see a big issue with. There are few reasons for this:

• There are unrelated extensions that popup.
• Some users may have low trust in extensions they know nothing about.
• There is a minority of Firefox users that are left out.

Visit The Official Website

Have the experience by yourself and see how it contrast with seeing a random extension. Try to be in the shoes of someone who know nothing abut HIVE or even blockchain.

Excellent Example of Web 3 Collaboration

Being a DAPP developer in HIVE is largely a positive sum game. The victory of one project can go on to help many other developers. @leofinance and @splinterlands are two of the earliest projects to develop custodial accounts. @risingstargame can easily use the existing innovations while giving exposure to other great projects on HIVE.

On the same home page there are links to Discord to find a community to engage with or ask for help as well as HIVE-Engine. On top of it there is a YouTube video which functions as a link to the YouTube channel. The website itself does not look very "modern" (this is subjective). Over time with better experience, and by observing other players in this space, we can refine the videos. Since high production quality videos are a high risk - high reward play; we could focus on other things first.

Constant Development Over 4 Years

We are almost at 5 years of development for @risingstargame and we have already been through two bear markets. Most projects do not last this long.

The Lindy Effect, also known as Lindy’s Law, proposes that the future life expectancy of non-perishable items, such as technologies, ideas, or concepts, is proportional to their current age. In other words, the longer something has survived and remained relevant, the longer it is likely to continue existing and being used in the future.

The Lindy Effect suggests that something grows stronger with age, as it has previously withstood multiple selection pressures.

Keeping Things Fresh With New Missions

There are several Missions such as this happening per year. I was happy to see @stickupboys get some attention this time instead of a made up character. The way these have been working so far is that they need a Special Card that is found in Packs for a limited time. Usually I find one of these when I open 12 Booster Packs.

Results of Opening Packs

As soon as I saw a new Mission launched, I went ahead and bought the Packs without thinking much. Below is what I manage to get. There was nothing spectacular like the previous time.

The All New STARDUST Shop

I checked out the shop soon after launch, but did not have the time to dive deep into it. The new Special Mission needs a SUB Mask that is 150 STARDUST in the shop when I looked at it. That is 750,000 STARBITS if I do not find a discount.

All of Us Can Help HIVE

There is no need to be a developer, influencer or a large investor to create an impact. Trying to onboard a few friends or writing some (potentially SEO friendly) articles could be push HIVE forward. We have not seen a big altcoin season yet.

Above is the Google Trends chart for the previous 7 years. If we assume that there is going to be a bull market, we have to admit that we are barely in an early phase of it. If you think of this as unrealistic, consider the fact that money supply grew around 40% during COVID lockdowns. When adjusted for inflation, $BTC did not even reach an All Time High!