Thoughts
Omarchy continues to be equal parts sickening and baffling. 1Password has announced $100,000/year in funding for at least the next three
years. Their entire corporate giving in 2025 was less than $300,000, and was partially dedicated to an employee donation match program and food insecurity. At this point I’m forced to consider that DHH is defrauding someone. Do we know anything about this organization? Who is it paying? Who are the board members? What is it going to do? Why the f*ck does he need so much money?
The environment on Hermitcraft has changed a lot in the last couple of years and they've run into a problem.
I didn't want to go through all of the contributing factors, but I might have to to describe what I'm talking about.
1. The server has been very successful (leading to 2, 3, and 4)
2. They've been able to be very selective with who is invited
3. The members have all tied their success to the success of the server, so they all trust each other
4. They've done several IRL meetups
5. So they all respect each other (due to 2), trust each other (due to 2 and 3), and are comfortable around each other (due to 2, 3, and 4)
6. They're one of the only SMP servers where the characters they play are nicer and more wholesome than the people themselves (with some exceptions obviously). Normally SMPs have a lot of scripted or forced conflict, but Hermitcraft has way less. For example, the Season 7 "Turf War" (one of the more notable conflicts on the server) ended with a minigames competition. I remember watching that and being glad that the situation didn't "escalate" into pvp. So there's an extra layer in the roleplay on Hermitcraft. On all servers the content creators are friends, on Hermitcraft the Minecraft characters are also friends.
7. There's more streaming on the server than there used to be (i.e. 5 years ago)
8. They're older than they used to be
9. The server has always been family friendly
10. The builds have gotten better and more involved
So 5, 7, 8 pull the content in one direction, towards them just being friends hanging out, but 3, 6, 9, 10 pull the content in the other direction, towards them being very family friendly, very, almost cartoonishly, kind, and shallow. What we see from streams is that the Hermits want to tease each other, want to make dick jokes, want to just be friends hanging out. But they also want to be on the server, making content, making better builds etc, because they want the server to be successful. But if they're on the server, then they feel like they have to play their characters and can't curse, can't talk about politics, can't rebuke each other. Because the fantasy of the world of Hermitcraft is that the characters all get along.
What this leads to is an increasing gap, for all of the channels, between the stream content and the YouTube content. Maybe the content creators are handling that fine, I don't know, but the fandom isn't. Youtube viewers sometimes freak out at hearing the way that the content creators talk on stream. Other viewers, like me, can't stand watching the Youtube videos anymore because we've heard the "real" voice of the content creator on stream and want more of that. The Youtube videos feel "hyperpolished" now compared to the streams.
I think the solution is simple though. I think Hermitcraft should take a note from Lifesteal and only do content streams. This would be an unpopular move obviously, it wouldn't satisfy the people who want the stream-version of the Hermits, but I think the Hermits would be happier long term. Instead of streaming 6 people mining a mountain (no actual content, you have to talk about IRL stuff, the fandom freaks out), do that offline in Discord VC, and make the videos be the videos. Because the videos shouldn't just be you presenting a build, the videos should be the primary way for you to interact with your audience.
I think they'll go the other way though, and turn into Twitch streamers, and stop making videos on the server because "Hermitcraft video" now has a fixed definition as a medium and style, and that medium will grow to feel too constructive. (That should have been my conclusion but two more points about what I mean. First the Hermits' styles have converged in some ways (due to 1 and 2) (they all do building and redstone and roleplay now). Second the medium of the youtube video is not inherently constrictive, it's only constrictive when you're trying to maintain a different stream and video persona.)