It boils down to the fact that there's always a catch for early adopters/investors....

Could not agree more. It does. And that's probably the only thing it does for now. Or did, i should say when price was higher and those who bought Hive at 20 cents or so did not lose their money. Eventually it will pump to that level at some point i guess but still.

A $1 hive would give early adopters/investors like myself more valuable influence within the platform.

Influence, according to whitepaper yes, according to real life, well yes probably too. The fatter the wallet the more following, but that then again does not depend on price of the token, but sheer volume of Hive in your wallet. I also do not see how higher price has anything to do with higher influence. If you could elaborate on that? Sincerely.

Also there is little point in influence, when the absolute majority of the content is voted bu curation trails and automatically and there is really little true engagement on the content. There is some, but.. yeah, not that much.

I think a $1, $10 hive is inevitable. Albeit in the long run...

I think so too but that is most probably wishful thinking. Three years on the platform and tbh community is only degrading. I do not see new members that come here for engagement, old ones that were active and truly capable of creating quality content are leaving. The new ones that occasionally venture in do not stay for long.

I see however some talented quality content creators coming in and posting quality posts from countries where a 1$ payout on a post makes sense. But then again, everyone comes to the faucet for the reward, hence rendering community quite boring, not engaged and of relatively low value.

We can agree to disagree, the price might pump to 1$ hardly to 10 :) But the community is on pulmotor fed by droplets from the faucet and regarding utility... well to be honest there is none yet imho.

But hey, nice having a live discussion and thanks!