I'm really grateful for this post. I have been thinking about this a lot as well, being fairly new to Hive.

I never really got the hang of legacy social media but Hive makes a lot of sense. As for the Con's you list only the possibility of 'lost' communications would really worry me. However the greater facility of more direct communication between individuals would facilitate smaller group cohesion for developing projects and could lead to more efficient communications in post/comments at least in so far as proactive participation is concerned. Perhaps a type of group messaging could be built.

Monetizing private messaging is certainly not something I would care for. Having the function could be very useful for many reasons and that is a 'value added' plus for the ecosystem as a whole I think.

Given that projects such as Hive are as much about invigorating social evolution and positive change as they are about earning a living, it seems to me that such value added propositions would help far more than they would hurt. I have however been know to be wrong on a few rare occasions.

Really good question and nice job putting up the pros and cons.

Blessed Be.