I appreciate your thoughtful and informative reply, but would humbly point out that I didn't disagree with the substance of your post, merely the tone. You actually didn't address that matter in your reply, although you indicated by the selected quote that you are aware of the specific particulars of my point.

Also, while I appreciate that many find witnesses somewhat opaque, I have some grasp of their purpose, and will point out that it is one of my primary concerns regarding Steemit, Steem, and SMTs. Witness votes are stake weighted, just as are all votes on Steemit, and the witnesses are the mechanism that controls the code that controls the blockchain.

This means that buying the mined stakes of the founders, and using it to control which witnesses run code, allows anyone with enough money to take over not only Steemit, but the Steem blockchain itself. The fact that those mined stakes are necessary to this hostile takeover/Sybil attack means that the founders will become millionaires when it happens.

If you think about it, SMTs are just as vulnerable as Steem, and the top witnesses, Stinc, and other substantial holders of stake are both aware of this, and are not acting to change it.

While copyright infringement isn't inconsequential, the media could buy the blockchain for less than the cost of lunch for the top 1% of them. I reckon this is more relevant to the felicity of Steemers than plagiarism.

While all that is what it is, my only substantive criticism of your OP, is your tone, not the points you make about @surpassinggoogle, plagiarism, or other matters. Perhaps you find my observation insipid, vapid, or otherwise irrelevant, and that's your choice.

All I sought is to reduce the appearance of virtue signaling, and promote rational criticism. I far prefer the latter.