The on boarding process and learning how everything works is a bit complicated but then again in a way it should be to those new coming in as Hive is truly a unique platform and blockchain. I have to say if it wasn't for a friend of mine that helped me figure it all out I most likely wouldn't be here today.
I feel like Hive onboarding is going to require a lot of hand holding and word of month in order to continue to grow. There are some great projects being built around Hive though that I feel will help reduce friction of on boarding and make earning rewards easier and then guide them into Hive itself as a blogging platform.
I can totally understand the part about feeling like an outsider to Hive when you first arrive. It can be difficult to get known and I'm sure within communities little subset communities have been born over the years in terms of voting and commenting. With saying that though I've meet a lot of great new people already from Hive and felt welcomed and I think that's in part of having other "tribes" to write on where people with related interest can talk about content.