"...Hive not getting a constant inflow of new users has very little to with branding and a lot more to do with a lack of utility. What's a new user going to do here, especially at a time like this in the middle of a bear market? Start blogging and maybe if they keep at it for a couple years and get lucky they'll be like me and make a good $5-$10 a post? That's not exactly a selling point."

This is sorta true. However, were Hive (or Hydra, or some other label) to enable and support free speech in a world increasingly censored and permissioned, that is an essential - actually existentially necessary to life in an increasingly dangerous world - utility that will overcome any clunky UI, onboarding mechanisms, and even the stench of censorship Steem earned, and Hive inherited from it. To this day creators here on Hive are being DV'd on every post and comment despite those posts and comments not being any kind of spam, scam, or harm. Almost all of these authors are strong advocates of free speech, yet because they advocate policies or beliefs disapproved by powerful stakeholders, they are censored by the mechanism of being debanked on Hive.

I choose 5 such accounts to designate as beneficiaries on all my posts, and have done so ever since I discovered Peakd enabled me to do this, because tips cannot be flagged away. I alone can do little, but were more of us to do a little for accounts being censored, we could together do a lot.

This is the real issue that has caused the execrable user retention on this platform, and it is easy to ascertain that for yourself, by simply inquiring of influential people that once had accounts on Steem (and less so on Hive, because so few influential people have joined Hive) why they don't have accounts active here now. Because these people are influential in their markets, the censorship they suffered penetrates the markets for social media platforms that follow them, and today Hive gets very few new users because our reputation as censorious and ruled by corrupt profiteers precedes us.

A rebrand might help, but it would only help bring in folks so unaware of the market as to not realize Hydra was simply a new name for Hive, and that's not the strongest base of authors in the free speech market. If the rebrand were preceded by a strong reform of the code that presently directs >90% of inflation to the few dozen whales that now extract it to creators, an alluring aroma of upwards mobility would counteract the vile stench of censorship and profiteering that Hive reeks of today.

"I was hoping there's be over a dozen ways to earn money on Hive by now, but there isn't. If there was we certainly would not be on the backfoot by any measure."

There are dozens of ways to make money on Hive today. However, most of them aren't earning money, but profiteering and rentier income. So, what you really mean is honest ways of making money, not rentier extraction parasitizing the work of others, which is how the vast majority of Hive inflation is today extracted from the rewards pool. Curation rewards are a prime example of rentier income on Hive, and this is why they have serially been increased across the history of hard forks, because those accounts that would most profit from increasing curation rewards are those accounts with the most substantial stake. Conversely author rewards have consistently declined, and rewards from posting comments - the engagement that is critically important to a free speech focused social media platform - have almost been eliminated. That's because rewards for posting require work, and profiteers and rentiers do not want rewards to be apportioned for work, because they don't want to work for their supper. The rewards that are paid to 'the help' come out of their profits, as they see it.

This is the fundamental flaw of stake weighted governance: them with the gold decide who gets the gold. Absent a different metric for governing the platform, or some miraculous reform of the profiteers that have been governing the platform since 2016, we're going to keep being parasitized into the grave, just as the US Congress keeps sucking the life out of the middle class in America while voting themselves ever greater benefits, and preventing the graft and corruption that is their most obvious skill and source of income from being justly adjudicated and penalized by law. The fox being in charge of the henhouse does not create the most egg production.

"I'm sure I'm overthinking this way too much and I should just stop thinking and start tinkering. Classic mistake."

I suspect a trap. KYC biometric digital ID for access to digital devices is a glaringly obvious means of turning surveillance into economic control and it's coming. TIA (total information awareness) managed by AI algorithms using social credit scores will create absolute and complete enslavement, turning every letter you type, every syllable you speak, into groveling to your masters - or weapons that will be used against you. Today every AI prompt is a window into your soul that is surveilled and analyzed by creepy stalkers for nefarious purposes, so I don't use AI for anything.

Most of us are ignoring this, and most of us will be trapped. Traps are made by trappers to take wealth from the trapped. As a child I learned about fur trapping in Alaska, and I aim not to die like a furbearer in a trap, helpless to deliver my fury and delivering my fur instead. I may get skinned, but it is far harder to skin a fox on the loose than it is to skin one in a trap, and I'll make it as hard as possible. Another thing I've learned is that no furbearer is in as much danger as a fox in a henhouse. The more financial assets you have the more trappers want to skin you, and if you're eating their lunch in their henhouse, you'll be their top priority. I've learned the best way to protect your assets is to appear not to have any.

An ancient dragon guarding a hoard of gold in a deep, dark cavern isn't fabulously wealthy, but impoverished by their utter isolation from everyone but thieves that have learned their secret. The only company they get are their enemies, their only interactions violence and bloodshed. The same will be true about billionaires in bunkers, that do not understand the good company of good people is the only thing that makes life worth living, and the only thing that makes assets valuable. I hope the good will earned doing good work for good people in good faith will keep you in good company as the dividend of your good investments all your days.

Thanks!