I think more active users is essential. I can see from the stats that hundreds are joining, but how many are real people who actually do anything? I suspect there has been a bit of a 'land grab' by some people.
Hive is still pretty much unknown, so we do need marketing. I think we need people in certain niches spreading the word. A lot of artists and musicians could be benefiting. The Hive name is an issue as you can't easily search for it. Other stuff comes up.
Getting users is one thing and retaining them is another. I know some get nice votes on a first post, but they are unlikely to keep getting that. They do have to put the work in.
Usability has improved over the early days of Steem. Peakd is pretty good and with Keychain you don't have to worry too much about keys once you set it up. We do need good tutorials that are easily found. People can be paid to produce those via proposals or other means.
I have seen some recent issues with people flipping out over 'losing' rewards thanks to a whale cancelling votes by certain trolls. These people have done pretty well, but feel they are being victimised. I've tried to talk them down, but they may spread bad vibes that don't help us. I think the concept of downvotes needs to be normalised as part of Hive.
There's lots of exciting stuff going on. We just need more people to realise what potential Hive has.
I'm with you on the stupidity of people flipping out on a platform they've benefited from and creating negative vibes. That really got to me..