Hive feels like Reddit + WordPress where the community is like a subreddit and every post are like Blogs. The only things stopping people from using it was the complicated registration. For most people, they want to just register with existing Social Media account or E-mail.
IMHO, another layer for most people because they just want a simple one click ASAP registration and straight away using it.
yeah, have you tried using hiveonboard.com ? that is very easy to sign up with..