Hive developers have been focusing on scalability. Too bad scalability isn't much use if there isn't much demand for the capacity created. In reality, the entrenched top 20 witness population hasn't been too concerned about adoption as much as their own bottom lines. The exclusive focus on scalability has lowered their costs and helped them stay profitable in spite of the lackluster price action of HIVE.

Hopefully the second layer can greatly enhance adoption. If Hive were to gain a lot of new users, then that would also help scalability because the stress testing of Hive hasn't really even begun, yet. How are we to know how it would break if it has never operated above 1/1000 of the maximum capacity?