As Patrick points out below, the Bitcoin mining pool "exploit" has been vastly overblown by DPoS fanboys. It's a risk, yes, work is ongoing to mitigate it - but in any case, it's far, far more of an existential threat with DPoS. I don't consider DPoS a decentralized consensus mechanism at all.
I do agree that Hive as it currently stands is one of the least weak DPoS networks, though. (Definitely not Steem though)
Either way, creating an open protocol for social media is an entirely different can of worms.
Creating the open protocol is not so big an issue btw. This platforms stores custom_json, which is pretty much very open.
I had typed a much longer reply, mentioning things like certain web2.0 protocols and so, but I think it would be irrelevant but I fear the dislike you've grown for this type of governance prevents you from still seeing the possible options.
I'm not saying this platform is the all compassing endgame, I'm not a DPOS fan boy either, and I'm happy for Bluesky. But all that doesn't take away that this platform has some truly awesome features and could have gotten much further with different past managers.
Governance? Not written in stone. Nothing prevents you/us from campaigning tomorrow for only 3 votes/account. Or 1SP->1vote.
Don't get stuck in those limitations. If we do we may as well pack in now. No startup founders would have continued if they knew about the future HR and boardroom games they would encounter.
On the other hand, one need not get stuck with current system.