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

Yes i do not need a $1 hive to do those things, but i could do them better with a $1 hive.

What's the utility, intrinsic value?

Influence?

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

as much as i would like Hive to be priced at 10$ i'm just trying to understand why should it cost 1$ and who would buy it for other than speculation purposes.

Anyone who wishes to have some level of influence within a decentralized censorship resistant community Hive will take it.

Anyone who wishes to make interesting returns while mining crypto a.k.a curating, will take it.

Community owners who will like to incentivize activity within his community will be smart to invest in some Hive while driving value to his own token.

I bought Steem at $6 during last bull, for both speculation and to increase my vote value. Only after the bull ran out did I realise it was a mistake. But i did all the same.

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