the 20% APR on HBD which makes hive look like a scam.

No. It does not.

But seeing curation trails and automated upvotes, and calling that curation is rather what makes Hive look like a scam.

Many of the so called curators do not even see the content they upvote (curate).

This is one of the reasons of the general lack of the real content consumers on the Hive blockchain.

And of course the general approach of most of the Hive users.

People focus so much on the monetary aspect (rewards) that they forget (do not care) about the content.

Often even as a so called content creator.

Most people focus on their own posts.

This results in that the 90% of the Hive posts are ignored/overlooked.

But some people force themselves to write dozens of (or even more than 100) comments per day.

The natural platform usage is rare.

This is how most of the Hive users socially ruin an otherwise technically revolutionary platform.

And this is mostly the result of the very bad ("post, vote, earn") marketing of Steemit.

This attracted mostly very greedy and very selfish users.

Mostly this is why nowadays Hive is a not properly working social network.

Even the smallest Facebook groups (for example with a few hundred members) have more real interaction than the Hive blockchain.

And I see some people, who put the same stickers with the name of Hive on various places, which continue attracting the above mentioned people.

Hive needs proper marketing, proper advertisements, proper communication, and generally a good first impression for the possible future users.