i think there may be more than just me on here that gave up and left TV, FB, YT, Google hangouts, and other so called social media for one reason. We grew very very tired of so called friends advertising crap to us, of mainstream media advertising crap to us. So this line of yours I honestly do not understand in the least:
> So I get the social media aspect of steem. And it sucks.

I for one do not want to see all the crap from all the other so called social sites. How many People from Africa do you speak to comment to visit the blogs of. How many from Mexico, Argentina, Portugal, China, Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, The Netherlands. I don't need to see a lot of crap being advertised to me. I like seeing the pictures from these area, the stories from the real people who live in all these various areas of the world, I hate it when I get the **"Video Not available in your area"** from yt, and then I have to search for it.

I hope that Hive is not going to be like those other so called social sites you mentioned. I liked steem exactly because it was not like those other places, if I wanted to be in those other place having my  mind wiped by so called friends pushing products at me I would be there on twitter, fb, yt or what ever other hack site people think of as social.