Also, remember that Steemit DOES censor, restrict, and shadowban people and content. They do it less than the mainstream sites, but they do it all the time. It's just more subtle. For example, there's a reason you've never seen certain off-limits xxxx content here. And why you can only see people like @thedarkoverlord through Busy and other frontends.
So, Steemit probably isn't going to be the solution to mainstream censorship. They aren't right now, and they're moving away from that direction all the time.