I've been outside Hive and in other web3 spaces and honestly it's also tough out there, many exciting projects with prospects but a lot of people don't want to stick around either.
It's definitely not just a problem on HIVE... Even on Web2, it's a problem for those who want to make a living from it... You have an illusion that you are doing well, but whenever you reach a milestone, you have to push it over the limit... It's like with those "earning platforms" where you always chasing the minimum payout and when you reach it, they put the higher requirement...
Actually I have seen stuffs like this especially in my early hustle years. I think sometimes we get too comfortable in Hive and think we have the worst ecosystem, meanwhile it's literally the wild west out there.