It's likely going to require an alignment of many variables for HIVE to achieve "mainstream" adoption. I believe one of those requirements is that crypto becomes a popular conversation again, such as we find near bull-market cycle tops in Bitcoin and the overall crypto market. That's box number one that has to be checked-off. As to the other boxes, it's difficult to say.
If "Web 3" social media options becomes a mainstream topic at some point, in, say, the next bull market phase of crypto, then one would expect that this would significantly boost the probability of HIVE garnering more outside attention. This would likely lead to a higher number of sign-ups and users during the ending stage(s) of the bull cycle (ending in "euphoria"), but may require a few more boxes to be checked off before the retention rates would be at a level that, when combined with an exponential growth in new sign-ups, would provide enough traction for the growth to spread out beyond people who're merely caught up in the speculative mania. I think most of us are already aware that the speculative crowd tends to fade away, along with their sign-on/ click rate, as the market tumbles over to a new bear market phase.
As much as it pains me to say it, I'm convinced that luck plays a huge role in whether something is widely adopted, to any relatively high degree (I'm thinking at least tens of millions of users, if not hundreds of millions), or not. I'm just not sure how many, or what specific, factors have to align in order for HIVE to have a real chance at moving beyond the "tipping point" of mainstream adoption.
I agree, it will take a lot of luck. I struggle with even mentioning the crypto aspect of Hive to people these days. Sadly, there are just so many negative connotations when you even utter the word "crypto" in mainstream circles. I miss the old days when crypto got people excited and motivated, I hope this exuberance returns with the next bull cycle.
Bear cycles are for building so doubling down on app development, great content creation, and making the onboarding process as easy as possible now would be wise.
I'm confident that the collective level of exuberance for crypto will only grow over time, as I really expect this to evolve into something as big, and important, as the Internet is today, if not more impactful/ useful. The only question that I'm left with is if HIVE is going to be invited to the party. I must say that I'm convinced it has a good chance :)