Yes, the data center threat is political not technical.

While its obviously important to have some witnesses with a high level of technical skill able to help with hard forks, having lots of HIAB witnesses running their own equipment mitigates the political threat of Big Tech censorship.

Hive shouldn't be doing any hard forks at a time that it is under political attack. As the system matures hard forks should be much rarer than they have been in the past.