You've got some reading to catch up on :)
There is also "pooled validators", where people can form their own pool and get others to put ETH into that pool, splitting the rewards.
So you could throw your .1 ETH into it(400 usd) and you will earn the % APR that goes with it(I think 15%).
There are over a hundred million Ethereum wallets, with the potential for millions of people to get into pooled validating.
Not to mention, there are tens of thousands of people with 32ETH + so that already right there is more decentralized than Hive's top 20 by a factor of 1,000x alone.
RE: The main excuse for malicious down-voting is "Over-Rewarded Content..." What about the account making $10k+ PER DAY in spam comments?