Excellent and important post @ura-soul. I do hope the upper echelons of steemit read this. [resteemed to get the message out there a bit further]

I am sure (hope) they are aware of the threats you mention and already in discussion to fend off some of the coming challenges to the platform.

I do believe the biggest threat to steemit is 'corporate invasion'.

In another part of my life I have worked as a consultant for various large marketing groups in the tourism sector advising them how to make the most of various social media platforms.

Even though I have only been on steemit for a couple of months I believe from what I have learnt already I could write for those clients a very effective one page brief on how to assert significant influence, and become a dominant brand, on steemit. And the money they would need to achieve that would be pocket change for their marketing budgets.

And I am sure the older hands of steemit could provide an even smarter plan of action to achieve those ends than I can so far.

I fear there are not sufficient 'defence mechanisms' on steemit to prevent this. Of course some on steemit might say we do not need these defence mechanisms as we do not need to keep the 'corporates / influencers' out...

[PS I am not planning to write that brief for any of my clients, and besides everybody likes a holiday in the sun, don't they 😉]