We all pay for it in the form of inflation.
Actually, I am not sure if you consider that many people haven't bought any - meaning that everything they have earned is on the platform - so the inflation isn't a cost, it is part of the system they opted into. Possibly wrong,, or semantics :D
People mine Hive first then sell for others.
This has happened since the start.
Interesting chart from @dalz
Look at all those powerdowns early on the chain (2016) - that is all the ninja mine as so little had come out of the rewards pool at that time.
But If you have 1000$, Hive may not be the best crypto to invest it in, especially if you already have a somewhat decent account and can just eventually get it for free from blogging (something I should get back into ;).
I actually let Hive creep up to a huge % of my crypto portfolio just before the Steem thing. It's back down to a more manageable amount. I sold a ton of crypto in March that I acquired in 2019 when the prices were low to take advantage of the dip in the world stock markets (no regrets) and used my Hive/Steem to slowly get it back due to the 13 weeks powerdown.
Looking at that graph is neat, I like the little PD ticks every year when people are selling to realize their losses for taxes or whatever. But it really gets confusing in early 2020.
I think the only way to consider it fairly is to start counting Hive around July 2020 when people were finished powering down Steem.
It really complicated the analysis situation. I don't consider people who sold their Steem to buy Hive as outside investors, but it's hard to consider it as a continuation.