It seems to me that hiding rewards wouldn't solve the problem. You still have reputation, which is largely tied to length of time on the platform and the "quality" of one's posts. Most people would assume that if you've been on the platform long enough to have a reputation of 75, then you're likely a whale.

Then there's the short-cut path where a user can just load an account with a lot of Hive and they're suddenly a whale. Heck, a person can join the whale club just for commenting on other people's posts and upvoting posts without ever creating posts themselves.

I think the fact that there's no clear cut path to success is a positive. That means new users can't just show up, follow someone else's pattern, and find success publishing and promoting mediocre content. Like in real life, everyone has to find their own way. Plus, the monetary rewards are not the only benefit. Some people may come here for the freedom to create without threat of censorship, which they won't get at Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or YouTube.