Hive has some interesting challenges, not least of which is the (often overlooked) fact that for a lot of Hive members, this is their first and only social media experience.
If the majority of Hiveans were active social media users with hundreds of Facebook friends and thousands of twitter/Insta followers we'd be looking at a very different landscape.
I also think Raymond is onto something with his latest Brofund proposal. Hive tends to be very self contained. On the plus side (if you're a developer) you get a built in audience. On the minus side, that means the need to go out and market your dApp to the world is reduced. Meanwhile, we grow more and more isolated... the same core group of people cheering on the same core group of people.
Perhaps we need to change the approach... instead of a "come to Hive because we're amazing" message, we need more informative publicity. YouTube/Insta/TikTok whatever... that are just "here's something you can do on Hive," more like public service announcements. And then those have to be about things people externally care about. Decentralization? Nobody cares. Blockchain? Nobody cares. Governance? Nobody cares. Privacy? Can't be deplatformed? Authentic content ownership? Earn rewards for being social? Now we're getting warm...
I'm going through the rather laborious process of updating my external web properties and social media presences at the moment (it'll take months) expressly with the purpose of being able to integrate Hive content into them. I'm not going to market "Hive" there, but I'm going to create content on Hive that's for "global consumption," and will (for example) go in front of a fair number of eyeballs for whom it is of specific relevance... even in its run down state, one of my psychology blogs still pulls about 3,000+ MAUs.
Otherwise, my experience is much like @xplosive's in that I get a LOT more attention and engagement in Facebook groups than here.
It's definitely a "code" we need to crack... and the African and South American communities are doing a FAR better job of it than the rest of us!
I think Hive can offer something to various sets of people. Those who get deplatformed elsewhere may be a small minority. It is doing fairly well in places where people struggle to earn much due to the local economy and that's great.
I find FB very frustrating these days and so only use it where I have to for staying in touch with certain people. Twtr has gone downhill too. I enjoy the Hive experience as I've made a lot of friends here. I know from experience how hard it can be to get others to use it.