This is absolutely true:
I cannot begin to describe how important that is because the every day person....
Sorry to say it....
Doesn't care about how a blockchain works. Decentralization isn't on the top of their minds. But what they do care about is...Ease of use.
In the old days on Steemit, before the hard fork, the most effective way to get readers and upvotes on posts was to join Discord groups, interact with other members of those channels, and share links with those communities. It was all in Discord. Is it still that way? Are the communities mostly on Discord or do the Communities really work?
We also had an auto upvote feature. I can't remember what the service was called. Are people still doing that?
I've found myself coming back to Hive after an absence of about two years because I lost my keys and couldn't get into either my Hive or my Steemit account. Now I'm having to relearn how to promote my posts so that they get in front of the right people. There was some magic in those days, despite the bidbots and other issues. The community that came together to support each other was the real part of Steemit that made it work. I suspect that is true of Hive today, as you said. But where do you find it?
Check out what we are building with ListNerds. It's a project that highlights people's Hive posts and helps bring engagement to it.
No need for bid bots with this model :)
!CTP
I've used ListNerds. It's interesting, but it looks a bit like a pyramid scheme. No offense. You built that?
I think I have two days left before I can send another email.
I think the concept is interesting and I'm willing to give it an honest assessment. Still checking it out.