This is a truly excellent piece and your clarity on the subject is so refreshing. Thank you! 😎

Your point on the reversal of rule enforcement is extremely important and should be in the Wiki. Norms emerge from voting, end of. By any means you can, try to convince people to vote your way, but I think the system should not be altered to bake in any of those rules.

One point though. The voting rules can be altered by a fork, so while what you describe is certainly the most accurate description of the current situation, it could be altered. This is good to bear in mind as time goes on and we see more controversies.

Edit: I had intended to comment on your point about kyle

I don't think klye really gives a shit, in his heart of hearts, about whether SS has the right to distribute these photos. I think klye saw was ss taking up a huge portion of the reward pool with multiple posts every day, saw the new "steemy" posts as potentially more money to this enterprise, and he decided "well, theres got to be something wrong".

I think you're probably right. The thing is that it doesn't matter in a way, because he's free to act as he acts, and we listen to him or not, etc. etc. without needing to know that information. But there's wisdom in understanding the actions of ourselves and others in a deeper way, and trying to see how this Steemit society work, wisdom that can help us. The way you've approached this is like an anthropological ethnography, it's like the "Thick Description" Clifford Geertz talks about. Great work, it's like you're thinking as an outsider while an insider.