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RE: What is up with the steemit hate?!
As far as concentration of wealth, I think it is common with cryptocurrencies but it is a bad thing. Not because wealth itself is bad but because of the nature of cryptocurrencies and what that means for stability, etc. I don't know if steam is worse than average in that regard or not though.
I think concentration of wealth is natural. I personally have no issue with the founders also having a majority stake. Usually all great things need strong leadership which best is accomplished by such a concentration of wealth and stake. This does not explain to me all this craze.
I think anybody who develops a great product deserves to get rich off of it. I'm just saying that too large of a concentration of a particular cryptocurrency in one place is sort of the antithesis of what a cryptocurrency is all about. The distributed decentralized nature of a cryptocurrency is what gives it stability and resilience. I'm speaking in general terms and again I don't know that steam is deserving of any special criticism in this regard. It's my second favorite cryptocurrency right behind Gridcoin at the moment :)
I agree with you, it would be nice if wealth would be distributed a but more even. The world is often driven by dominating forces though. In bitcoin the concentration of wealth is a lot higher than in any other fiat currency. In steem we have a big steemit company that owns about 50% and many whales who own a few percentages. I think this is not a bad situation.
I think some healthy dialog about this would also be healthy but what we see in people calling steem a scam and interrogating Ned this way I did not think was super productive.
No, it certainly isn't fair to call it a scam. Cryptocurrencies and blockchain technologies in general are still in their infancy and as such today's cryptocurrencies are still highly speculative and potentially super volatile but there is certainly a huge future ahead for them. "Unlimited potential" is not too strong of a term. I don't really trust any of today's cryptocurrencies enough to seriously invest but I certainly think it is worthwhile to mine Gridcoin as I already use BOINC and to participate in the steem economy here. I like cryptocurrencies that serve a particular purpose beyond just being a currency. Steem may or may not survive in the long run but I don't think anyone is being misled about anything.
Decentralization in young systems is highly overrated. When the system is just born, it should be mostly centralized so that the development will be more efficient. When the technology matures, the decentralization can take place.
But they are different design paradigms. It can be difficult or impossible to transition from one to the other without creating something entirely new. Something designed from the ground up to be decentralized is going to generally be superior (at being decentralized) then something you try to decentralize later.
Nope. Most crypto projects that are fully decentralized from the beginning have failed and will fail. In the real world it's really difficult to have a decentralized system that actually produces high quality service.
It's much more easier to let founders have the control over project until the technology is advanced and there is real community that can get shit done. There is no benefit of giving power to newbies who do not have any idea how the system works or how to develop it. Many times they don't even share the same long term vision.
Steem is fully capable of decentralization in later phases of development. Only thing that is needed is to sell or give away steems that Steemit, inc. owns.
Yes, it is difficult. That doesn't mean that it isn't ultimately the best way to create a secure, stable cryptocurrency in the long run though.