Hivefest is an industry conference. Tickets for such events usually cost hundreds, or even upwards of $1000 per person. An early bird ticket to Devcon this year for example costs €600, with a normal ticket costing €700. Below is the pricing for Web Summit 2023.
Large events that can get all the people involved in developing Hive, its businesses and ecosystem, require facilities and it requires bringing those people in from around the world. It's inevitably going to cost a lot of money.
Perhaps it is possible to make a big event similar to Hivefest on the cheap. Hive is an open system, if anyone believes that they can organize such a thing, or turn one of the existing meetups into a bigger scale event, nobody is stopping them from trying and proving that it's possible. They may even be able to get funding from the DHF, with sufficient support.
Of course these prices are not that expensive for developers, for programmers, nor for businessmen. They have much above the average income, not something like $200 USD per month, as a pension-like income, which is below even the minimum wage in Hungary.
This all depends on where in the world one lives though x)
My salary is 2488 usd a month after taxes.
But my bills are 1463 usd a month.
Depends on your country and what you do.
This is also true. Your country, your occupation, your circumstances (owned house, rent, something else, your consuming habits). There can be huge differences even in the same country.
Exactly