While billions of us habitually hook in to Facebook, Twitter and Reddit every day, reaching for a temporary fix of Dopamine and likely to get censored for saying the wrong combination of words - a growing number of people are creating a saner, alternative option! Instead of enriching a few billionaires and subordinating their own free speech to mostly faceless Silicon Valley corporations, the people over at the Hive blockchain are doing things differently - very differently!
![7ohP4GDMGPrU6KTuuW27Tq6en5JYHcVeXL6fAJ1RujUw3NULjf8Ndi8hgZ9Y3ysiL2Lruq6sgi2Cz9P9AQEEvXXACgLyKc6gAuZX.gif](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/resonator/23swXube5tS1bxtG1rS2iSkZUcYsmhoTfHWMMZTPNfWur7jBV8DP3DFfgeNYrE1He8xVu.gif)

## Ready For Social Change?
> *"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result".* _{- Albert Einstein}
It's so easy to fall into a trap of habitual behavior that leave us with less in our lives than we could or should have - less joy, less freedom, less growth and less empowerment. Many people have pointed out that they feel that the modern obsession with social media platforms often leaves us less connected, less ourselves and less happy than we once were. But is that a problem with social media in general? Or could it be that these problems stem more from the way that the most heavily used social media platforms are designed? As it turns out, numerous studies and leaks from insiders have shown that Facebook and similar platforms have been carefully designed as tools to hook our brains into forming habits that keep us mindlessly using their 'services' over and over again, with the main goal being profit for the website operators! Even worse, in addition to the massive ad revenues these sites generate, their real main source of income is selling data generated through monitoring people's private lives. So called 'Surveillance Capitalism' is one of the fastest growing 'industries' and amounts to little more than selling your private information for profit! Even when we are aware of this and know it to be morally wrong, we still find ourselves mindlessly clicking away on news feeds that are 30% adverts and which continue to mine us of our vital time and energy. **There IS an alternative - *let's break free!***
## Decentralized, Blockchain Powered Social Media is NOT a Myth!
Not long after the world's first decentralized currency, Bitcoin, exploded onto the world stage, triggering the Web 3.0 revolution, intrepid inventors went straight to work to create elegant ways to apply decentralized thinking to social media. In 2016 the first ever attempt at a decentralized social media network was launched. Steem, which has since evolved to become '[Hive](https://hive.io)', offers revolutionary features that blow the minds of many folks who have never wandered far beyond the fences of the Web 2.0 compounds that the Silicon Valley corporations guard so cautiously! - Free international financial transactions. - Financial rewards for upvotes on your comments/posts! - Accounts that cannot be deleted. - Posts that cannot be totally deleted by moderators, admins or anyone else. - An open source and publicly run/owned/built network that is impervious to outside control. - An easy to access development eco-system to allow anyone to create their own social websites powered by the Hive blockchain. - A wide array of [existing projects](https://hiveprojects.io/), from video sharing sites to games, health tracking systems and beyond - all powered by Hive - all using the same one Hive account.
None of this is available in the world of Reddit, Facebook and Twitter - all of which are entirely based on controlling people instead of empowering them. Hive truly is years ahead of the old dinosaur tech of Silicon Valley... *So.. Why isn't Hive a household name?*
## "I Just Had A GREAT IDEA! Imagine Decentralized Social Media!? What Would It Look Like?!"
Virtually every few weeks for the last few years, you will find 'influencers' in the cryptocurrency space announce excitedly that they have had a dream, nay a vision - **they are going to invent decentralized social media!** Despite the technology having been invented in 2016 and thoroughly battle tested since then, it seems that few people have realized that any of this has happened. One reason for this is that Hive doesn't have a marketing department, it's growth relies on a combination of word of mouth and the curiosity of internet explorers. Another reason for this is that Hive is TOO DISRUPTIVE! You see, Hive isn't just a social network, it is proof that decentralization is extremely powerful and can dramatically improve the quality of life of large numbers of people. Hive does this far more naturally and enjoyably than centralized corporations can ever do. This is a death sentence for 'traditional' corporate systems and so, understandably, they don't want to tell you about Hive! Remember those big name Wall St. bankers who were infamous for saying that Bitcoin was worthless and that they would never buy it - but who were secretly trading it all along? Well, 'Big Tech' and 'Big Media' are doing similar with decentralized social media projects. They know they can't really convince anyone that Web 3.0 social media is a bad idea, so instead they make sure never to mention it. The result is that new users on Hive are often amazed at the opportunities that Hive offers, the diverse community and the fact that no-one they personally know has ever heard of Hive before! *"Why would I use Reddit, risk getting censored, banned and completely ignored - when I could use Hive and have none of those problems, plus even earn money in the process?"* This is the basic question that many new users of Hive ask themselves and then never want to leave!
## Growing Hive Means Growing Our Own Future
On top of all of the great tech features, Hive has an advanced economic system behind the scenes too. Hive supports two crypto tokens, [HIVE](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/hive-blockchain/) and [HBD (Hive Backed Dollars)](https://coinmarketcap.com/currencies/hive-dollar/). HBD is 'pegged' to the US Dollar, meaning that it is meant to hold a value rougly equal to the value of the US Dollar at all times. Meanwhile, HIVE changes value according to market demands, so can be invested in and traded just like other crypto tokens. As Hive users built their stacks of Hive tokens through gaining rewards and receiving gifts from the community, they are inspired to help the community grow more by bringing their friends and others into the network too. This 'network effect' creates a pressure on the price of Hive and over time leads to the token's value increasing. So not only can members of the Hive community redirect the profits from their social media use away from billionaire tech company shareholders and towards their own pockets instead, they can also further grow their earnings by helping to expand the Hive community and by improving Hive in the ways that people find the most useful. Now ask yourself this question: > Have you ever felt that you were part of a powerful community that could direct it's own destiny 100% when using Facebook, Twitter or Reddit? Have you ever even felt this way EVER in your life? This is the feeling that Hive effortlessly gives all of it's community members who take the time to learn it's ways!
## Join Hive Easily Here
If you'd like to try one of the many Hive powered websites yourself, you'll need your own Hive account which you can [easily set up here](https://signup.hive.io/). Several free options for account creation are available or alternatively you can pay a small fee for the benefit of anonymity and other cool features. It is important to understand that Hive accounts require a small amount of crypto to be available in your wallet before you can transact on the network or post comments. Some Hive powered sites will 'delegate' you the use of some Hive to get you going. For example, [3Speak](https://3speak.tv) will delegate you 15 Hive tokens, which is enough to keep you commenting and posting to Hive quite happily. If you decide Hive isn't for you, you can always sell any Hive tokens that you have via a cryptocurrency exchange and then leave! Of course, we are confident that far from leaving us, you are much more likely to feel inspired to get involved in the exciting journey of helping the Hive community go to the next level of growth and creativity!
@resonator _{Credits: Thanks to @doze for the great Hive animation.}