Definitely hurdles, but things have improved over time.
- LEO let you create an account from Twitter or Facebook. I've not tried that yet.
- Losing keys is an issue for all crypto. It needs to be drilled into new users that key security is vital. I've never tried the key recovery, so not sure how easy that is.
- I log into most things with Keychain, so rarely need to access the actual keys
- There are some projects to supply some delegation for newbies. Those who recruit others should help them out initially.
Hive has still to hit critical mass. Just getting people to try it is hard.
!BEER
I think we need to go beyond this. We have to accept how users really are and adapt our product to it, not try and force users to behave in an ideal way.
Just like account theft recovery seemed to be an unsolvable problem until Steem/Hive solved it, key loss can be solved too. Something we could do: at registration every account creates a list of trusted accounts for recovery. X of Y accounts from the trusted list can reset your password.
I think this sort of thing has been figured out by cryptography people. Just need to implement it in a viable way. It still involves trusting people. Would my kids conspire against me? ;)
I am looking at ways that I can pass my keys on if something happens to me. I really need to train some of the family in actually using Hive. I have written up some notes on this already to share with them.