I've recently (within the past two days at time of writing) joined Hive (not without a few setbacks and bumps in the road), as my Pub0x followers (ninety-six of you already since June; wow) are probably aware. The network is massive and there are many technologies and projects (~150 of them) built on top of Hive or leveraging it, despite the fact that it's only a little over a year old. I certainly think it's a promising blockchain worth looking into, especially for dApp and Web development. However, (as mentioned in my other writings) it is not without its own set of problems, some of which are more to do with the things that use it rather than the blockchain itself.
The Hive ecosystem: a small sample of the plethora of ~150 technologies built on top of or leveraging the Hive blockchain
The Good
Splinterlands: The game is highly addictive and challenging. I've already sunk many hours into playing it when I should have been doing other things. I've found that there's a good mix of game experiences in terms of how many I win and lose (in terms of whitewashes and closely-contested matches where it's hard to tell what the outcome will be). To see what a whitewash looks like, click here.
Blocktrades: Having tried at least three of the listed registration providers, this one proved to be the easiest to use (even easier than Splinterlands).
Hive Keychain: A cryptowallet for Hive. THis one "just works" and is available for Windows, iOS, Firefox, Chrome and Brave. It also supports storing credentials for multiple accounts, should you end up creating multiples as I unfortunately did.
Actifit: A pedometer app for Android and iOS. It's definitely better than Sweatcoin (SWC), which is slow, buggy, requires you link it to your Google account and doesn't yet have an exchange behind it. In Actifit, the real-time graph is a cool feature too. It also integrates/works with Steem. Caveats: It binds to your SIM card/phone number. It also has a max reward limit of ten thousand (10 000) steps per day and to get credit for using it, you have to file a daily report before midnight.
The Bad
The main Hive Website: While it offers a number of options for creating user accounts/wallets (which it calls "registration providers"), it fails to mention that Splinterlands itself creates a Hive wallet once you've bought the spell book (which you can do with PayPal or crypto) and selected a username. Since it features the game on its ecosystem page, the team is no doubt aware of this and should, in my opinion, make mention of this.
Splinterlands: It could do more to emphasise the fact that it will create a new HIVE wallet for you when you pick your username and that once you've chosen one, your username cannot be changed. Also, you cannot enter an existing Hive address/ID/username into the creation dialog's textbox to link/use that account instead, which is annoying. Likewise, the signup/join page should make it apparent that you can log in with an existing account, provided you purchase the spell book. It should also emphasise/force downloading the keys for the wallet it creates, instead of leaving the user to figure this out on their own, especially since the ability/option to do so expires twenty-four hours after account creation.
Hive Onboard: There are no more account creation tickets available, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that it is the first listed provider on Hive's main site.
Inji: The FAQ is empty. Also, it's not obvious that to access the links in the footer (including the FAQ and "Contact Support" ones), you have to click on the site's logo (conventionally used to visit the home page). Also, I couldn't figure out how to configure the settings in order to link a Hive account, despite using it to create one. (There are no tooltips, information lines nor links to KB/FAQ pages on how to do so.) That's some seriously bad UX, folx! (Yeah, I know the site's still in Beta, but come on!)
The Frustrating
Blocktrades: It requires KYC (including a face photo and copy of ID). It could also emphasise the text where it recommends putting in twice the wallet creation fee so that you start with some HIVE in your account once set up (particularly since it gives ETH as an input currency option and GAS prices are high; you don't want to perform multiple transactions). Maybe it's my fault for missing that in my enthusiasm to get on the bus, but I'm probably not the only one.
3Speak: A video upload and streaming site, like Twitch/YouTube, but where users own their content. Once I'd entered my details to sign up/create an account, I received a verification link by email. On clicking it, the page in question showed me "account already verified". However, when I went to log in, I received the error "Account not verified; please check your email". I couldn't request another verification link. (The reason that this is in the "Frustrating" category and not the "Bad"one is that customer support responded swiftly to my email reporting the issue. Having created a Hive account through other means, I have no issue logging in.)
Ecency: A micro-blogging/social network site that is also listed as a registration provider by Hive. I could not get it to accept my details for signing up/creating an account. It kept reporting that I have/had a "low IP score" without further explanation. Once I had a Hive account, I could log in without an issue.
The Still Unexplored
Peak'D: A posting site for content creators (not just blogging, if I understand correctly). This is the one that started it all for me, really (although I didn't realise it was a Hive project until recently). I'm not using it for the same reason as I'm not using the Hive blog (see entry further down this list).
Subsocial: A social media site built on Hive. It's apparently still fairly new and sparsely populated, according to Renaissance Man. That's all I know about it so far.
The Hive Blog: Since it requires HIVE in order to post or comment and I have none, I have not used it yet. For now, I'm sticking to Pub0x, read.cash and noise.cash.
Leo Finance: A social media/blogging site with a focus on cryptocurrencies (particularly Hive, of course) and finance
The larger Hive ecosystem (other Hive projects): With approximately one hundred and fifty (150) projects built ion/integrating with the Hive blockchain, there's just no way I can investigate all of them in the course of a few days.
If you would like to send me HIVE for my efforts in writing this post, please use one of the following accounts/IDs/usernames (since I created multiples in my confusion:
gr8.white.snark
crypto-anchorman (used for Splinterlands and created by it)
lord-h.cavendish (created under the mistaken belief that I could supply an existing account when choosing a username for Splinterlands). If anyone would like this account, please contact me on Discord so that I can send you a DM. (Yes, I do have all the keys saved, but I can easily delete my records of them.) I've already paid for the spell book, if I remember correctly. There is no HIVE in the account.
An honourable mention must go to @ifiwasfrank for first drawing my attention to Hive through one of his writings.
For the swarm, I am the one and only Great White Snark and I am covered in bees!
Post lead image: Screenshot of Hive's homepage.
I don't know when you posted this article but it got me on facebook and caught my attention.
Regarding Hive, you always have to have hp to publish, if you don't have it you can't do anything.
To grow you have to interact, but, at the beginning if you don't have money or hp, don't do it. Just dedicate yourself to publishing and to using your money wisely to publish.
Regarding ecency, I love the interface, it's very cute, it's clean and nice. I haven't posted on it yet, but I know it gives you some kind of resources. That I still don't know what they're for.
However they say that ecency doesn't have many commands, and peakd has more command than ecency.
I don't have hp either, I'm waiting for the internet quality to improve to make a transaction. I have money in my Blurt account (a blog similar to hive, but better in my opinion). And from there pass it to my hive account.
Regarding 3speakd, I have been told interesting things, such as monetization. A girl from my country earns $100 a month with her, just creating videos. So I plan to start soon in it with an art and crafts channel.