"...Hive sees some substantial growth as a social media platform before fixing the DV disparities, it could backfire in a major way, making Hive well known but for all the wrong reasons."
That is exactly what happened, albeit before Hive was forked off.
A significant (THE significant) impediment to resolving the matter is that the ~36 whales that control Hive governance see significant growth as the one threat to their governance. It is a sad fact that controlling the pond is more important to profiteers than the size of the pond. It is thus the plutocratic governance of Hive that continues to preclude user retention, and why massive stake is thrown at HW to flag n00bs off the platform, because that maintains the financial dominance of extant oligarchs and that maintains their plutocratic governance which assures they will capture the vast majority of rewards from the pool.