Social networks try to defend themselves by introducing a Reward system in addition to Advertising

Today I would like to talk about a topic that seems really interesting to me: the turning of the largest social networks in the world towards a remuneration system partially (for now) deriving from rewards and tips. Today creators earn in a way based only on the advertising, but something is changing. This of course makes us immediately think about Hive and other blockchain-based systems like it. Let's quickly look at some of them:

TikTok, is the most popular social network in recent years, widely used by young people and which has had a recent exponential growth. His program is called Creator Fund and it is not easy to access it, in fact it is necessary to meet certain demographic requirements, publish original videos and already have a certain following that I do not want to dwell on now.

YouTube is the first video sharing platform to have established itself on the internet worldwide. Its remuneration program is called the YouTube Short Fund and, at least initially, it focused only on short videos as it is precisely on that target that the migration of younger users to TikTok took place. A move that seems "defensive" from the whole. Here, too, the requirements for accessing the program are not easy for everyone to achieve. Now it has introduced even a "Super Thanks" feature to support your favourite creators.

Instagram, a social network born on the sharing of photos and images, has invented a system of Badges as a symbol of the support that people give to content creators. Based on the number of badges, the number of followers and user engagement, content creators can earn extra amounts.

Twitter, to keep up, has introduced a sort of Tipping Jar in tests to allow users to support content creators by donating sums of money. Some selected users have already been able to try this feature but it is not clear what evolution it will have in the short future given the recent interest of Elon Musk in the company.

Facebook, the product that first created the concept of a social network worldwide, has decided not to lag behind and has decided to include remuneration tools (for example Facebook Stars) other than the classic advertising system. The company is undergoing a period of "bureaucratization" due to issues related to freedom and the right to use content. Perhaps for these reasons Mark Zuckerberg seems to want to push on the Metaverse and on a new concept of social network (which for now is only a vision though).

What does all this mean? That the big players are in turmoil because they observe the growing interest of people in a functioning very similar to what we know on Hive and do not want to lose their audience that could suddenly migrate to more fertile places. One of them might do better than the others, but will that be enough?

In my opinion there are two critical elements:

• In cases where it is the social network that chooses who to reward then accessibility will be restricted to a lucky few and this may not appeal to everyone, moreover this also means that the platform could start charging users (as is already happening on some platforms) by offering "premium" features.
• On the other hand, in cases where people have to pay the "tips" it is not certain that this is completely appealing to those who are used to using right now the contents for free.

In both cases, in order not to lose the interest of users, the platforms are finding solutions to make users pay more, and this does not seem very wise to me.

There are elements of uniqueness on Hive that are difficult to replicate in a centralized system like our good old social networks. Decentralization here is not just about who makes the decisions but also about who decides which content to reward. In fact, the reward system here also encourages curators who are those who choose the contents and not just those who create the contents. From this point of view, here the user always "wins", because he does not have to pay, he is rewarded for what he does regardless of the role he chooses to play.

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New to Hive? Here is what I learned to have a good stay here:

• Do not copy/paste & Do not spam & Do not flood
• Take your own photos or, if necessary, use the copyright-free ones
• Do not upvote your own posts and comments
• Interact with others & Do it in a meaningful way

Do you have experience on Hive instead? Feel free to leave your suggestions, I'm here to grow and improve.

Thank you!