Yeah and that's what raises suspicion that actually, whales don't want this thing to go mainstream.
The way it is now is already a big drop in profits vs old days. If masses join, and only join to interact with mediocre content. Rewards will fall more and be averaging a few dollars. Because Hive value doesn't go up just because masses join. Money must keep coming in.

That's why I think blocktrades wants to only focus development on the backbone because he believes that will attract business and entrepreneurs, and they do bring money.

People don't want to face a difficult truth though. That is, that a lot of people left. Even if this thing gets a revamp. It's hard to return hype to something that's ran stale for so long. Another thing is, a new platform that enters the crypto space and DOES do social well from the get go. Will end up making all these hopeful projects obsolete.