Web 2.0 apps provide an extremely slick and polished user experience
I have the Instagram app installed on my phone. I have made a post with it exactly once and I do not intend to continue any time soon. I sporadically log in and see what some of my friends, acquaintances and family members are up to.
What strikes me as very, very different from the best of Hive apps about Instagram is how effortless and smooth the whole experience is. I don't even have to look for content or people to follow. The app keeps pushing lists of people pulled out of databases owned by Facebook who also owns Instagram. When you install either app you give it permission to scour through your phone and see which of the existing users you have on speed dial on your phone and who are part of their networks. As a new user, it would take literally minutes to build a list of accounts that belong to people in your IRL network to follow.
Of course, no new application that has a small user base (actually follower relationships are on chain on Hive and for a good reason but that's another story) is capable of using existing networks to enhance the user experience of any new user. But using whatever networks there are based on interest indicated by tags used to post and other information is something for Hive apps to look into when onboarding new users. Many popular apps do that. For example, when you create a Quora account, Quora asks you about your interests in detail.
Build bridges between Web 2.0 and Web 3.0 experiences
I believe mass adoption will never take place without third party services for maintaining keys that are built to bridge the gap for people used to the ease of use of Web 2.0 platforms. Some apps already provide guest accounts, which is great. A later transition to full control over one's account keys should be provided.
PeakD offers a quick path to account registration for those who do not yet have an account but who wish to comment on a post, which is great:
When you click "SIGNUP", you'll see this:
Much better than what we used to have.
But one thing that could be nice to have is the possibility of leaving an anonymous comment using a special account created for that by PeakD. That way, you could interact with content on chain right away without going through any complicated steps. It could be left to the post author to choose to allow anonymous comments or not.
I believe it's through incremental additions and improvements that the user experience can be brought to a level acceptable to the masses who are used to the supreme ease of using familiar Web 2.0 platforms. When you design UX, I think it really pays to leverage people like @midlet who are experts in this field. He has written about UX issues at length before. Check out his blog.
Why mass onboarding matters: Metcalfe's Law
Mass onboarding really matters because the value of a social network is proportional to the square of its participants. Each user or piece of content acts like hook that helps even more users or content stick to the chain.
As to the complaints made that that Steem/Hive has had a four-year run and still failed to achieve mass adoption, I have a few things to say.
I don't think the shortcomings of Steemit, Inc as a company in charge of development need revisiting for the umpteenth time.
Four years isn't actually a very long time.
Most of the development done on Steem and later on Hive has been back end work with a heavy emphasis on scalability issues.
Conclusion
There is no need to throw in the towel, declare Proof-of-Brain dead, remove the content rewards, and turn Hive into just another DPoS chain with nothing special going for it. There are plenty of options for investors into DeFi to get their staking rewards.