Regardless, Steem was already centralized before Justin Sun came along. Ask what was being done with what was supposed to be the Steem Onboarding Fund. I hope there was no misuse. Ask who would have had the power to do that. Ask how many "anonymous" accounts were created with 15SP and then used to vote in witnesses and downvote people (people with opposing opinions, coincidentally). Ask how many accounts some people own. Just because there is one big account to point a finger at, doesn't mean there weren't other very large stakeholders, who were just clever enough to hide their stake in many many "anonymous" accounts. Ask about the various schemes that were used to milk members, under the guise of helping Steem and the community. The histories and wallets have all of this information. Anyone can look it up. Well known accounts/communities that accepted delegations and help in order to "promote good/valuable content". Two things I observed happening: The profits went to market in one case(very regularly) instead of growing that account. That account would have had more power to help with otherwise. Who profited here? Where did that money go? Did it increase someone's stake? In another, large votes(close to or 100%) went to a "select" group of accounts(regularly). Then there was just not enough "power" left to vote the content they said they were going to. After they allowed the SP to recharge, they would allow some votes to go out (mind you, at a very low percentage), and then the process would repeat itself. Did the delegators know? I doubt it. Did anyone provide a public explanation? No. I venture to guess that the majority of people did not know what was happening. What is worse, these communities had volunteers running around like monkeys trying to find good content. What about blacklisting people for things other people did, because those accounts voted for a post or comment from someone that was blacklisted. Not to mention people blacklisted are guilty first, they have to advocate for their own innocence. Ask how many innocent people were branded guilty because they were branded a danger, posed a threat with their counter opinion? Free speech anyone? Mmm mmm good. How is this fair? Who gets to decide this? How is that decentralized? Not to mention the incredibly demeaning process to go through in order to be removed from a blacklist. Did you know that people who are blacklisted aren't entitled to some rights (or some of their funds)? I didn't. But cool. So what happened to those funds? And, what about if you offer a counter opinion, how suddenly, strangely, a robot downvote trail seem to show up. Oh, but don't worry the powers that were, "weren't retaliating" becaused you dared to speak up. And what about the circle-jerking between large accounts? Or the curation window designed not to promote new content or new users, but to promote only old and known users.
From what I understand, though I have not personally verified it, content was removed from Steem prior to this. You can google it probably. I know some people were writing about it outside of Steem. From what they are saying someone actually went into the code to remove things. How, I do not know. But apparently there was a way? At the time, I hoped it was not true. I am sure someone here will know what I am talking about. (It was from what I understand for providing counter-opinions.)
And this is just the tiny tiny tiny bit which I encountered in my 11 months here. I noticed these without really looking for them. These were just triggered by some abnormalities that stuck out and caused me to look a little deeper. How much more was there? How deep does this go?
Don't get me started on Hive. Copying people's intellectual property without their consent. Copying code that links to media resources that were dedicated to Steem, and paid for with the purpose of being used for Steem. Copying the name of another blockchain business. Bullying people into voting with them. What kind of voting system is that?! Lying to the media. No, they didn't just fork Justin out. They forked out everyone with a counter opinion too. At the time I was blacklisted I wasn't voting Justin's witnesses. But you can bet I sure did after I found out what was said and done behind my back. And those problems I talked about above and all the other ones I personally don't know about, those have migrated over to Hive now. How will you take measures to ensure that the same thing won't happen over there?
And how do you know that this stake account will never be used to vote. What? Because someone said so? Come on! We've all heard this one before.
The way the system is designed makes it ripe for exploit and decentralization. A lot more will have to be done than copying the code.
You guys have a lot of work ahead of you. And by guys I mean the members. Because some of your leaders. I wouldn't trust them as far as I can throw them. The comical thing here is that I think some developers really don't know what other developers were doing. I mean come on guys! Who are you getting into bed with? Did you bother to check? Or, are you part of it?