Does Hive even need to be a big chain? I think it's very hard to compete against those giants, Solana, Ethereum L2s and even Cosmos and their VC funding.

Maybe Hive is destined to stay as a smaller chain focusing on blogging and micro-blogging. Doesn't mean it can't grow though, with more and more inflows coming to crypto in general, everyone can grow but perhaps not against those giants.