Yes, community is key. Shouting into the void doesn't get you far. I am one of the top commenters. That and going to Steemfest helped me connect with people.

I know Dick/Pete is part of the open source world. That does not seem to be so big on Hive yet. It could be good as a lot of those projects struggle to earn enough to cover their costs when people do not want to pay for 'free' software. I would vote on posts by projects whose software I use. For now I get their blogs via an RSS reader, but I cannot vote them rewards with that.