My hope was that they would change their name and that would reduce confusion and improve SEO. But instead they just made a small name change.

It doesn't change anything at all really. The confusion will still be there. Hive should just change names so that there is a unique naming element.

Also keep in mind, there's Hive Social already as well. It's a saturated name. Go for something unique that no one else has claimed.

Meta took Threads as a name for their microblogging platform and LeoThreads is just going to come across as a ripoff even though it was first. Unique and catchy names are needed to really penetrate the market and have the opportunity to showcase what they can do.