How did I get here and why am I still here?

It was @thedashguy who mentioned the previous chain on the Dash Slack in 2016. I was already pondering how one would earn crypto or alternative currencies. And while that's always a hush-hush topic now, back then there really wasn't a clear way to do it, other than fire up a miner or run a supernode.

And as marky says, this is a blockchain where you can tinker. It's a perfect fit.

I never did any real blockchain tinkering (coding) before Steem. The only thing remotely blockchain was an Open Bazaar client I wrote:

https://peakd.com/openbazaar/@inertia/openbazaar-api-ruby-client

In fact, I published that project's README.md directly into a post and got upvoted. That got me completely hooked on the idea of publishing all my project README markdowns from then on. Like, some kind of proof-of-markdown mining algorithm.

At the time, it was like a lottery. Spend some time working on a nice post, see what happens.

It may not be like that anymore, for completely new authors. As time went on, even that lottery aspect fell away. I realized I had to actually be social on a social network.

Why I'm still here.

Time is an investment, just as much as money. They say if you spend 2,000 hours at something, you're an expert. There's no assurance for quality, in that 2,000-hour figure, but it's true nonetheless.

I mean, you can spend time learning something unmarketable. There's no guarantee anyone will care about your expertise.

That's why sometimes it's good to listen to comedians who have annual shows. If they're known for having a good show on an ongoing basis, they might have something profound, because it probably took them 2,000 hours to develop the full act. That assumes its new material each year.

Another way of looking at it, I'm pot-committed.

I really think Hive can be a hub for pretty much any topic. You know that thing you spent 2,000 hours learning? That topic.