Welp, I reckon you've been turned. All it took was a few flags tossed your way to open your eyes to the reality, and you have been edumacated as to the corruptive corrosive force of money.
Somehow, you managed to not include me amongst all the serial '...and there's also these...' groups. I've never made one slim nickel from Hive. Never have I converted any of it into some form of money I could actually spend. I'm not here because of any pecuniary interest, but actually so that I can hear folks speak their minds and to speak mine. I reckon that is the actual value Hive best enables me, and all of us, to gain from being here. As you point out, folks after tokens can get them in a zillion places, so either them after money find a way to get it here, or leave and get it wherever.
Sooner or later the oligarchy feasting on the token economy here will break. Then we'll have the ability to govern by far more valuable metrics, whatever we decide that is, since we can't even have that conversation yet, while everyone still thinks money is valuable, is actual wealth.
Nothing is more valuable than good company. We probably won't be able to even see that until we start exploring space, and start being separated from humanity for significant periods of time, but once that starts, the value of good company is going to start becoming astronomical (pun intended) and only going to continue to rise thereafter.
Today you are blinded by what you see, the cynical dominates your conception of society, all for a few flags. I hope that now that you are broken free from your moorings you can venture forth and gain perspective on the forest that is today blocked from your view by a few trees. It is your lust for money that has spawned your rabid denunciation of Hive, and you're not wrong in many of your realizations, just limited by your disappointment and rage to seeing only those things, and not the potential society lurking within the platform, awaiting it's chance to be noticed, to flourish, and to deliver a better metric than money on which to base governance.
Hive is a plutocracy. How could it be anything else when money is political power to govern? That's what PoS is. You are shocked and dismayed to find out the oligarchy ruling Hive rules with money, because (for some reason I simply do not grasp at all) your acquisition of money here is being reduced, or even eliminated (I don't know how hard you are being flagged, whether it's total elimination of your income, or not), and that is what has inspired your reckoning anew your beliefs.
While I'm agin' it, as I don't want you to be denied income, I cannot fail to note that gaining a wider perspective regarding society benefits you far more than a few tokens could. I hope you can, too. I greatly appreciate your rant, and will continue to, as long as you find motivation to continue to produce them.
Thanks!