Looking at it with a "long-term" lens, Hive @ $5 would mean $15 for account creation (just for example).
Since claiming tokens (done by whales and other onboarding projects) help to reduce the burden-cost on the Newbies on Hive, then I think for post HF26 we will witness a rapid increase in the scarcity of free accounts. Projects like Hiveonboard and ecency may explore alternative ways of making accounts available; maybe reduction in price or limited quantity of account creation per day.
I also key into your idea of exploring other means like to buy/trade the account on debt. However, with the rate at which many Newbies end their Hive journey after their introductory post or after seeing that Hive isn't a "Get-rich-quick-scheme" we may end up struggling to pay the debt of these people.
Posted Using LeoFinance Beta
We can lower the 3 Hive cost for creating an account.
I think we will have to.
Sooner rather than later with this upgrade in play.
We will probably have to lower it to 1 Hive or less.
This will be a plausible move. Let's see what the future holds