The way I see it (and I'm a nobody so it doesn't actually matter here nor there) is that Hive should be open to pretty much anyone that wants to take it seriously, irrespective of what kind of "investor" they are. Everyone started at the same point at some stage. Yes, there are those like yourself that have been here since before day one and migrated over - that group of people had a vision for what Hive should be which was decentralized and not open to being bought out by one or another party who could call the shots. That in itself shows that there was foresight as well as a long term view, but I get the impression from your post (and I could be way off the mark here) that it isn't going the way it was originally envisioned.
New Hiver users are not going to know anything about witnesses when they start unless they've had a proper walk through or taken the time to actually research it, the percentage of those is probably very low I'd say. I've been here over a year and I don't think I have used my witness votes...I don't even know who half of the witnesses are to be honest.
As for getting involved with anything other than posting, most people are not going to know anything about the dApps, some won't even know about Splinterlands and even fewer are going to get involved with the coding side of things...does this make them less valuable? I don't know - it's very subjective. What I consider value may be vastly different to what someone who's been around from day zero considers value.
I read a post a long while ago about how people would feel if Hive simply vanished one day and most of the comments reflected they were horrified at even the thought of that. I don't think (on average) that people take the place for granted, but that's my perspective which could differ from others that are seeing things from a zoomed out point of view. Like I said, I'm a nobody so I'm not privy to all the ins and outs.
Anyway, sorry for the long ass comment. I know that's annoying AF, but you know me - I AM annoying as fuck 🤣