One very positive thing I'll say about #SpendHBD is that in the areas where it's taken off (particularly Nigeria and Venezuela), it has led to some really good people coming onboard to Hive.

It's true that many of the users have only seen it as a way to buy things and get cashback, but that's just the Pareto rule at work. Even those users are helping to get word about Hive out there, but the ten or twenty percent who start actively engaging with the Hive community are wonderful to see.

What I have noticed is that it's taken a few really motivated people to build the networks needed, and that the real success points are where the shops which sign up see it as more than just another payment method and get involved in onboarding and (probably more important) training and retaining Hivers. Those shops become a kind of Hive focal point, and need all the positivity and support we can give them.

Hive has a massive problem that it discourages commercial use (I saw Hivewatchers slam a business account the other day for using a manufacturers stock images - with permission - because they didn't understand that for pre-ordered products they are the only images available). But if we can turn that around and encourage commercial users, it's a massive pot of investment/ad spend which could be tapped into to help push the price of HIVE up.

Compared with the thousands of HBD pulled from the DHF by other proposals claiming to market Hive, I think #SpendHBD is seriously good value for money in terms of HBD cost per user onboarded. I'm happy to pay the price of a few lower quality posts in exchange - and actually find it interesting to see what people around the world buy and how much they pay compared to here in the UK.

So for all these reasons, I'm a huge fan of #SpendHBD, and will happily upvote posts related to it.