What's wrong with incentives anyway?
Nothing.
The wrong is in the approach of most of the users towards it.
They focus on the monetary aspect so much (too much) that they forget (do not care) about the content.
And this is mostly the result of the very bad (post, vote, earn) marketing of Steemit.
This mainly attracked the greedy and the selfish people, who put too much focus on the monetary aspect.
And I see some people putting the same stickers with the name of the Hive on various places.
This is very bad. This will continue to attract mostly the same above mentioned people.
While, if people would actually care about the content (like on a properly working social network), then this platform could already have outperformed Facebook, seeing its technical advantages.
Hive really needs a proper visibility outside.
Proper marketing, proper advertisements, proper communication.
And of course a good impression for the possible future users.
If all a person will see on the platform is dozens of ignored/overlooked content, then probably they will not register, and probably they will not become an active user.
As I wrote in my previous comments, I am really on the side of the Hive.
Otherwise I would not invest hundreds of Euros into the platform.