Friendica happened around the same time G+ did, and even had more and better features that G+ did at the time. I vaguely remember a conversation with the lead on Friendica that they had no idea what the "wow" factor was or how to get it, as the product was pretty solid and reasonably well polished (it was still under heavy development at the time I looked) but when a friend of theirs was testing it, they were very positive about it, but when that friend got onto G+ they were raving.
And I think that's what a lot of places even like hive and its various hydra front ends probably struggle with.
Yeah, the Hive blockchain is absolutely incredible... but it definitely lacks that wow amazing feature that gets people so excited for a shiny new thing.