Steem the Stallion

Remember: Steem + the user community is he horse. Isn't he magestic?

VS

Steemit, Inc: The sadistic Jockey

Note: This is a near-word-for-word instant message wall of text I sent to a friend. I have edited some parts to obscure their identity and added some contextual info to ensure that third party readers understand my full meaning.

blockchains controlled, owned, or otherwise dominated by a single corporation can never accomplish anything interesting in terms of disrupting today's existing power structures.
the moment they begin to approach that threshold of "interesting" the corp's owners will rightfully, and legally decide that it is time to exit
The thing that makes bitcoin and its ilk interesting-- and powerful
is multistakeholder non-dominant control of operational responsiblity and reward
you can take this in one of two ways:

1. As a knock on anything you're doing, or you. That'd be wrong. Though I will thoroughly and publicly knock any chain dominated by somethign as antiquanted, centralized, and state-dependent as a corporation.(edited)
2. As advice delivered in the form of a long-form instant message rant.(edited)

Distributing the operation of a corp-chain across a validator set or set of witnesses doesn't improve the situation
because in corp-owned chain situations
witnesses or validators or what have you have to obey certain software license strictures
meaning that once again
The single point of failure becomes obvious
So one of the things I mean to tell you in all of this-- is about steemit. You know its system well, so I will use it as an example here.
No one is free to use the steem source code as they please because it prohibits forks
Well, the license does, you see
so in the end all witness autonomy on steemit is a mirage
witnesses rely on the SPOF-- the corporation -- for the privelige of operating nodes. But notice this: Node operation in this case is a privelige.
So steemit, inc is a jockey. This jockey has a tiny one-inch boner that everyone can see because he is not wearing pants. he is grinng ear-to ear.
steem is a horse
actually to make it clear: the chain, and the users, collectively make up the horse
Now, the horse is bleeding, and panting. This is unnatural because he's a purebred with incredible racing lineage
his grandpappy was bitcoin, of course
why is the horse bleeding and panting? And why does the jockey have a boner and why's he so happy?
Well, you see, the jockey is happy because he is dominating the horse. The horse is bleeding, because he jockey is digging his spurs into the horse and they're literally razor blades.
The jockey also is using a cattle prod on the poor horse. The cattle prod is the legal bullshit that keeps the blockchain tied to the corp.
So supposing that the owners of the corp were unusual types
and willing to allow the chain to do something interesting
well, the corp stil poses a tremendous weakness
specifically, the second the state, or a state-linked megacorp that can buy the state's actions doesn't like what the "blockchain" is doing
that corp can be sued, or its charter revoked, or what have you .
for example
bitcoin
were it a corp-chain
the moment it became inconvenient
-- BOOM!
disruptive chains are not convenient
nor is anything genuinely disruptive, weather positive or negative.
An example of this is steemit's double exit:

Steemit, inc's people have been exiting from the currency for a very long time now
definition: exit - windfall profits from startup activity
Now that is just the individuals
the steem currency is suffering from another drain on its price
that drain on its price is the fact that when the company needs cash, for example, to pay salaries and the like the company sells off its steem
this puts negative price pressure on the token
in fact
due to the steem distribution
only one entitiy has menaningfully contributed to the state of the steem price
and that is steemit, inc
and of course, all of their contributions have been of the downward type.

THIS IS THE KEY PART I NEED YOU TO HEAR

The steemit model is areally, really great way to start a company
......you start the company, by killing the chain. and then you sell the company even though you already sold all (or the vast majority of) the value out of the chain. Remember-- I, me, faddat, Jacob Anthony Gadikian who hails from Buffalo, NY have repeatedly said that steem had every right to be a billion dollar blockchain. And... well, technically, I still believe that, but here's the problem:
In its current form, owned by a corporation, It's.... long-form fraud
and it moves wealth up the pyramid
and it's not illegal because today's legal system favors corporate entities that are registered with it and recieve "personhood" from it and are thus its bitch.

Overall, I didn't think you want to start a company. And probably especially not a company that is pioneering a business model that sacrifices a blocckhain community's wealth to develop itself. And trust me-- that is what will occur due to the legal imbalance between a chain and a corporation. It's like if mega-advanced aliens just showed up one day on earth
we would of course be their bitches. Now, odd thing is that chains are way more advanced. So maybe the better example is that one mega advanced alien shows up on earth full of knowledge and has no tech whatsoever.
So humans (the corporation) kidnap him and torture the knowledge out of his head and discard the corpse, the end.
When I say great way to start a company-- I mean great way to start a company for thsoe who favor the corporate way of doing things.
Under a 20th century business framework, the steemit way is a FANTASTIC way to start a business. However under our current reality and with the knowledge folks like you and I have in our heads well frankly I think that model looks really fucking unethical.
To twist this scenario again (I have been thinknig about this a grat deal of late)
imagine that tomorrow steem goes way the fuck up in value
yay, more post rewards!
let's say it continues to do well for a sustained period of time
let's say that it begins to displace the USD-- or even like... you know, touch a fraction of its currency area
well, Iraq wanted to trade oil in rubles, yuan and euros. Saddam, specifically. We know how that played out.
Gadaffi (or however you spell that hilarious and odd fellows name) wanted to start a gold currency area in the middle east and africa
"we came, we saw, he died"
.....and so-- what I am saying is-- steem/sbd could NEVER
EVER threaten USD.

because that corporate charter is too easy to revoke, founders too easy to kill, company too easy to sue, etc etc etc
chains that are in any way dominated by a single stakeholder are thus pure fiction as stores of value that will outlast the dominant entity.
have no relationship to bitcoin and what have you.
Therefore: ONLY blockchains WITHOUT corporations dominating them stand ANY chance of having meaningful impact
control and influence over the chain MUST be as diffuse as possible. Absent this, I am of the opinion that TPTB will find and eliminate or otherwise subjugate the SPOFs, killing the vialibity of the chain.

https://discord.gg/8dWYbFS

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