You don't have to use them at all if you don't like. This is just, as tags are, a way to collect and organize your information in a group (made up of people, or ideas, or accounts, or content... whatever) and is completely volumtary. I'm trying to break down your meaning here in terms of the idea of non-consensual control but I'm not totally following it.
If you take a look at the beta right now, the hive tag is mapped over with the current name of the community, and this will be interface agnostic. So, if you use Steempeak, the hive tag will be used, but what you will see is the community name, and whatever it may be over time; same on Steemit.com, any other interface that decides to utilize the full set of community capabilities. There's a lot that can be done in terms of say, URL structure, but I think that is somewhere down the road in terms of plans. The reason the ugly tag is ugly is because it allows total freedom in terms of naming, changing names over time if desired, overlapping topics if you want to do so, and the ability to have your community look and be known as the same on any and every interface.
Tags in general don't actually matter as much as you think, and certainly not for "organic" content discovery, but they a very useful way to put your content where you want it to go — if you choose to use them, but that's up to you. All that being said, there are large improvements yet to be made to URLs and to that particular "category" view, so hopefully that helps to some degree. Don't want to use a hive tag because you've not found a community that you feel you want to participate in or try to gain leverage in? Don't, and don't let anyone tell you you have to! Just more options for creating the experience for yourself and others you want to see.