QUOTE: STEEM is not decentralized. From the beginning it was and still remains highly centralized. The launch of the STEEM network was heavily rigged to ensure that the developer and his ‘friends’ had control over majority of supply. Furthermore, this has major implications for the Steemit platform.
The top 247 accounts on Steemit (most of which are probably owned by the developer and his ‘friends’ through duplicate accounts) own ~87.50% of total stake, without including the main steemit account which is also controlled by the dev. Although any user can vote for content, the influence of your vote corresponds to the amount of STEEM you convert on your account. This means the typical user’s vote is almost meaningless unless they manage to acquire a high stake in total supply.