but there just may not be the demand to buy it.

That can be a big issue. If it isn't demand close to the end of the bull market, won't be in the bear market.

Hive is a long term game, but at the same time the majority of its user base is from places where immediate needs are high and regular.

I don't really use Medium, so I have little idea what it's like. Hive ought to be attractive for being free to use with no ads and full control of your feed. It does allow freed for people to spam, but if you use communities then you can moderate that. I want to see more top creative people here, but they want a bigger audience than we can offer. It's the chicken/egg problem.

I don't use it either, except when being sent there to read something. No ads and full control of your feed may become attractive at some point and already is for certain categories of people, but not for the majority, unfortunately. Yes, Hive communities could bridge the gap between Web 2 and Web 3 much easier. Unfortunately, somehow we are quite good at reducing our user base instead of increasing it.