The DAO is one of the greatest things to happen to Hive. It's new, and we could use more devs competing, but the amount of work the devs that are getting paid are putting in, I'd like to shout out to @howo especially, is what gives this chain value.
Investors look at developers, in the age of defi/dao if you don't have a self-funding mechanism for development, people won't touch your coin. Bitcoin has Blockstream, EOS has block one, ETH has the ETH foundation, etc. DAO's are the future, Hive does not need a "sugar daddy" because we have a DAO to fund dev work, we didn't need to have a 70% premise (ETH) or a year-long ICO (EOS) - we are pure grassroots.
Also, being on ledger is one of the best things you can do for your project. No serious investor is touching Hive until we are on ledger. Yes, I am an investor but I'm cut from a different cloth. Most investors don't do enough research and are terrified of risk. If they don't see you on a ledger or with a way to fund dev work, speculation goes out of the window.