Hive still has the problems I mention. Big players (some of whom contribute nothing meaningful in way of content) still drive away talented creators, even those who successfully create/engage an audience... just look at stickupboys. Only the most recent in a long line of people who couldn't stomach the hypocrisy of seeing a ruling class on hive tell an account they must follow an arbitrary set of rules that certain members of said ruling class never follow themselves.
There is a big difference between giving up on something, and recognizing that the odds are stacked against you achieving anything of value.
Hive has had it still offers an alternative to the corporate platforms that exploit their users.
Yes, hive is an alternative to the likes of Zuckerbook and X. But hive lacks the basic functionality of those sites. Things like being able to control who sees your content, or easily bring real-world friends to hive if you wanted to E.G. make a community where it is just you and your friends using it to post life updates similar to Fbook.
Also, the question of exploiting the average user on hive is a v open one. People with big accounts, x-bidbot accounts that now rake in the $$$ through v strategic curation and DHF funded projects continually devalue the HIVE token against BTC. These people understand very well that the only way to extract value from hive (a deflationary coin) is to dollar cost average out to BTC (a none inflationary coin). Therefor hive is constantly moving downwards against BTC as can be seen in the chart of HIVE/BTC from its inception. There are the odd pumps against BTC, but catching them is v difficult for users who have there hive locked up in HP.
And so the constant downward selling pressure on hive (by v large accounts) is part of how hive exploits its authors and curators as it is right now. But this has been the case for the majority of the time since the hardfork from steem.
These are all realities that most people on hive either choose to ignore, or actively never speak about.
It is what it is.
There are issues with some people, but I think a lot of the whales have an interest in it succeeding. They are not taking money out. Meanwhile St--mit still has some value for no clear reason. I don't get all the financial stuff.
The platform is good for what it is, but it's not meant to compete totally with FB or Twtr. It's a public blog. The communities allow more control over who posts.