Ironically, even though Hive is a social content plantform, the idea of social media where people actually engage and are social with each other (beyond the stereotypical "nice pic!" comment) is out of the ordinary.
In many ways, Hive is a throwback to the days of "social blogging" as it was between 1998 and Facebook taking over the world (2008-ish).
The very thing that appealed to me when I got here was precisely that it was not mindless and dumb social media... but I also honor that that's not for everyone, and thus Hive is likely to always remain more of a niche venue than a broad-based one.
I see these various issues faced by newcomers being discussed and it makes me think that these concerns are what need to be gathered and collated and put together into a comprehensive "Newcomer's Guide to Using Hive," that goes above and beyond just the obvious "connect A to B" instructions.
Maybe you're not familiar with the different communities working on welcoming newbies. I see them leaving comments as long as my arm, with links to different newbie guides, all in vain as they don't even bother to reply, although there's always a note for them, saying what to do if they need help. The truth is, you can't force anyone.
Oh, I know there are quite a few groups doing the newcomer welcome thing... of course most are (understandably) bot messages, which people are mostly trained to ignore.
I'm more thinking along the lines of guidelines/FAQ being popped in people's faces before they even get to posting. As part of the account creation process, even. Along with "have you REALLY backed u your keys?" you get a "if you want ANY chance of succeeding, read this!" Maybe even having "annoying popups" before someone tries to post.
I've tried to talk a number of people into joining Hive (as has my wife) and the issues always seem fairly consistent: The learning curve is "too long," and people arrive with false expectations.
The other "problem" we have is that there's only a very tenuous connection between someone who "recommends" Hive and the person actually taking them up on the offer.
The referral system might let me know that someone joined as a result of my linking from somewhere, but I have no means of DIRECTLY sending them a "Hi Erika, how cool that you joined Hive! Here let me offer you some help and suggestions! from the very beginning. I've been saying for 5+ years that we need an integrated internal message system — Facebook messenger style — in this ecosystem. I can cost resource credits, but doesn't reward, and to facilitate newcomer integration, there should be an option for the original conversation starter to "fund all resource credits for thread/conversation."
Or something like that.
Mind you, as a long time admin/sysop in web groups for 20+ years, even 5% of signups becoming active would be a MAJOR success!