While I recognize your frustration, I understand the fundamental principle of value as deriving from people, and not money or material goods and services. This underlies my work, as I strive to accrue goodwill on account with people, whether here on Hive, or in my local community. I see money, particularly, as a mechanism that facilitates fraud. I also see government, and institutions of every kind, from religious organizations to capitalist corporations, as vectors for that fraud.
Therefore my solution is to interact with people directly and rather than seeking money, I seek goodwill. When I have financial expenses I tap that goodwill and let the people that I have a balance with know about my financial need. To date this has enabled me to manage, although I am inventing this mechanism as I go, with attendant errors and mistakes. What is apparent is that the fundamental premise is sound. Rapine thieves cannot steal my goodwill, and when such people try, they very strongly deprecate their own value. People that I have a goodwill balance with are not fooled by false claims, and only people incapable of goodwill make any such attempt, which is readily apparent to good, reasonable people.
Further, I find my social circle greatly improved as a result of this effort, because unreasonable people incapable of goodwill are generally unpleasant to associate with. The community I bless by my work and production is my wealth, and the fundamental reality of this principle is revelatory in ways I had not anticipated. It is because of this principle that I have not used Hive tokens as money, and have no regrets from that practice. Insofar as I myself seek to not use money, I am engaged with better people, and better live myself according to fundamentally sound principles of beneficence I am pleased to better exemplify in every way I manage it. The reverse is also true, that in every circumstance where I am seeking to benefit me I find I am diminished by that in my own eyes.
In reality we are fundamentally a community, and not merely animals devouring living things to survive (even if that consumption is indirect, as facilitated with financial assets), and the more we exemplify that mutual beneficence that a community depends on, the more we are content and at peace.
Thanks!
Edit: recently an elderly woman whom has lost both her children in a short period of time came to my attention as needing some household repairs. I approached folks with the necessary materials I did not have, and when I secured them I performed the work. I did not request, require, nor accept any financial imbursement for the days of difficult labor required.
Her neighbors were grateful to me for that assistance, because they deeply sympathize with her terrible loss, and value her as good people and a neighbor. I didn't only generate goodwill with her, but her entire community, and was fed and given gifts I would have been rude to refuse. Whether or not I ever am 'repaid' for my assistance, I have peace of mind and contentment as valuable compensation, if I am forced to look at the situation from that perspective.
Nothing is more valuable than that.
I don't disagree with you, I lived mostly without money for a few years too - though eventually gave up because it is virtually impossible in England (too tiny and compressed, with not enough people of like mind).
Ultimately, our first language is not words and our first exchange is not money.
Exchange of thoughts and feelings is the primalcy - they create experience and that is what we accrue in life.
My post here is intended to highlight that Hive is about much more than money. The decentralised data storage capacity is an almost unique feature even today and could genuinely be revoulutionary, regardless of the involvement of money.
I am glad you do emphasize that decentralized Hive is definitely more valuable than money. I remain ambivalent regarding IP, but Hive definitely is a sound mechansism, despite some flaws, for accounting it.
An open source mechanism where people can decentralise information is world changing - it just hasn't been fully harnessed yet.
I am not interested much in IP - but I am interested in real creators being identified as it gives the rest of the world a chance to hear from the world's deepest/smartest people, instead of just the repeaters and the stooges.
I also prefer to get the work of authors and creators of IP directly from the source. My understanding of the music industry reveals that folks that continue to produce and perform continue to market their IP. This is less possible to writers and coders, who release products but do not perform them, which limits their reach. Other IP has more or less performative elements. For some IP, the originator may not be available, for whatever reason, and then we must be happy enough with what they have provided us, and those through whom they are provided.
Certainly the blockchain can preserve provenance of IP and enable seeking those sources far better than all too easily censored internet and print sources.
Coders can create businesses and products, then update and refine them over time - that is basically how the biggest software companies got so big. However, there is also the open source movement - which seeks to circumvent this to some extent, but also to just facilitate it through giving people a jump start with ideas for free.
There is a sacred ground, which is the idea field for spiritual vision - in other words - the ideas that shape our minds and thus realities in big ways. This is the most powerful area and also the most corrupted and corruptible. The power struggles on Earth has led to a process whereby those seeking to live outside of loving balance (most people) have come up with an uncounted number of ways to try to take legitimate golden wisdom and 'adjust' it to their own vision. This causes them to have experiences that they do not like - often resulting in them blaming other people too. This lack of integrity would ordinarily just cause problems for the people doing it, however, due to mass publication and info sharing, the distortions can now affect millions of people and the entire planet.
In fact, the 'influencer' phenomena is like a metastatic process, where cancerous errors can travel around the world before other people have even noticed. In some ways I am pointing to the same issues that the self identified 'controllers of THE SCIENCE' did during COVID, which they used to justify heavy censorship and worse. These are real problems, but clearly there has not been much of a consensus on who exactly IS right on the key topics. To anyone with a reasonable mind and open heart, the answer includes full respect for free will - in the absence of any kind of agreed upon certainty, each person must be free to experience the results of their own actions and choices.
So, for me, being able to both demonstrate who exactly it was that got correct information about important topics - first - and also who was wrong.. Once there actually is greater clarity and consensus on what exactly reality IS - is paramount. This is part of why I value the 'proof of credit' or 'proof of creation' aspect that Hive can deliver, so much.
During the early days of blockchain there were several white papers and projects seeking to deliver this, but as with so many such projects they did not seem to achieve much.
I just did some research and found that there are already two projects doing exactly what I am describing here. OriginStamp and Digital Timestamps. One of them uses the Bitcoin blockchain and has already been used in court cases successfully!