HP has become as useful as a chocolate teapot

This exactly, unless you want to develop a dapp on Hive (which nobody wants to do as the chain isn't popular) there isn't really a lot of reason to buy especially as there is constant selling taking place by bloggers who get curated and the entire DHF / HBD.

It’s all about begging in comments and Discord servers, delegating HP to "curation trials," holding HE tokens/NFTs, kissing some whale's ass and hashtagging like it’s an Olympic sport.

This also. So many that get big upvotes this way don't even hold Hive Power and are cashing out everything they earn even at current prices.

Not sure if bringing back bid bots is the solution, but something really needs to happen to make it so that everyone has a proper incentive to have as much hive power as possible again.