"I’m trying to figure out what we need to do to make the platform more friendly so we can onboard people."

Limit taxation would be my first recommendation. This post is focused on Blurt, because they're spamming you mercilessly. Blurt only exists because Hive allows 100% taxation of peoples' income. Everyone on Blurt I have spoken with is there because they were taxed excessively here.

People thinking downvotes are bad

People don't like losing their money. It feels like someone picked their pocket when they get DV'd here. I have a friend that pays ~$400k/yr in taxes. He doesn't like it, but he likes going to prison less, and having a significant income enough to put up with it. People taxed at 100% of their earning on Hive have no significant income to enable them to mitigate the pain of their money being taken from them.

Reasonable DV's for someone that has done something wrong wouldn't create that anger, and certainly wouldn't inspire a whole other platform to be created. 100% taxation of earnings indefinitely doesn't really leave anyone any choice but to leave. I know hundreds of people that left the platform because of that reason, know of thousands, maybe tens of thousands more that did, and suspect the real number is ~1M.

DV'ing a post that is plagiarism, or self voting, or is discovered to be using a botnet to vote a partner in crime, or themselves, is reasonable, and can be effective in ending the behaviour. However, when these DV's continue indefinitely even after the culprit has quit doing that, that isn't reasonable and drives people from the platform, and makes them very angry, too. This has given Hive a bad smell on the market, because those angry people complain to everyone they can that they have been robbed of all their earnings, and censored, and they're right.

This is very obviously a tool that is poorly controlled, and prone to abuse, that Hive should manage better IMHO. It is the primary, and almost exclusive, reason for the dismal and abysmal user retention Hive has today. It also greatly impedes new onboards, because for 8 years people have been complaining across the cryptosphere about being taxed into penury without relief to the very people that are the primary market for Hive. It's the worst marketing plan I've ever seen, and the best marketing plan I've ever seen is authors happy they're posting on Hive and bragging about how successful they are.

Hive should better manage DV's to encourage the latter, and minimize the former, and that is the most important use of the DHF I can imagine.