Yes, that is a hardfork thing, but I think is necessary at this point not only to remove positions to inactive witnesses, also this will make more easier go up for the new people coming.

Currently to reach TOP 50 you have to get ~27M SP in approvation which is a pretty huge amount and everytime the amount increases drastically, so I'm sure many devs don't join cause they are affraid to don't get the needed support to start producing blocks.