That, combined with other tensions within communities here, and all of this being the same problems I encountered when I was here a few years back, has me worried that Hive is going to end up having its rug pulled by the currently big accounts, as folk get tired of the stagnation.

I have already seen that many of these more niche communities have dried up quite a bit in the past year. A lot less activity than there used to be, both in the number of posters and the weekly rewards being distributed to them. It's normal that with cycles some of the general interest dries up and returns with price action, but I don't seem to be seeing that interest returning. I also noticed a very large chunk of the people I followed had just stopped posting when they were some of the most active people I saw around. I don't think that was necessarily price action but people just leaving for other reasons.

There is a lot of weird stuff on Hive, and it's hard to not notice. You'll see people that never comment or curate any other posts getting supported every single post they make, but then you look at the communities they're posting in and they're a wasteland in which nobody else gets curated. Or you'll see a post that is genuinely incredible and evident of significant effort and they'll barely break a dollar while a post published 5 mins later will get instant rewards. Obviously the rewards side of Hive isn't promised and not every post can be a hit, but there isn't much effort to really even things out in that sense. It's why this place doesn't see really big posts and especially high effort video content.

Hive is a not a place where effort results in rewards. It is purely luck. Some are luckier than others.

My concern isn't really that Hive dries up, people will come and go either way. I have the higher concern that we're all too reliant on Binance and our generally lowish trading volume could spark interest in a delisting. Projects with more volume have already seen that fate.

Also some quick advice for you: keep posting about the things you like. Absolutely do not put too much time and effort into posts since you'll definitely burn out. Keep posting in different communities and find those areas of interest you may have here. Things will pick up over time. Posts with images will also get a bit more attention. You don't have to change what you write about or how you write it, but presentation generally does help gain an eye or two.