You're making way too many contradictions here
Someone wanted to expand the value of the network with Justin sun through the acquisition of STEEM, but HIVE forked which is a dilutive action. Whenever you split a userbase you render yourself a niche application. Here's an example Bumble is a fork of Tinder, Tinder chose acquisition by MTCH companies and has more users and a 7x the market cap, Bumble has lost 75% of its value and still has a PE ratio of 13, its failing instead of remaining in the MTCH ecosystem.
The only reason HIVE has seen any growth, is Splinterlands, so does Splinterlands not care about their users, because they raised capital
To think that crypto is not about launching and be acquired by bigger companies because decentralised is niave. The days of someone spinning up an app or network on his home computer ended with satoshi, all applications in crypto come from VC money. You think Dan Lirmar pulled BTS, STEEM and EOS working at Mcdonalds? No he raised capital.
All crypto are loss-leading networks, looking to scale and then acquired, A16z, Cummberline Jump Crypto, Coinbase and Binance own half the shit you use through back hand deals
You are not realizing that your arguments prove the main point of the post. Everything you are saying is true in overall crypto world, and that is the problem. Hive is a solution, or at least an alternative. It offers clear path for decentralization, while everybody else is still trying to centralize things.