When writing becomes visible on walls, even if you don't grasp the basic reasons it got there, you can act to avoid even more harm. That's what I think is the case here. The lolbertarian devs know code, but have no experience investing. They came up with unlimited manipulation via stake to impact quality of content because that made sense to them, and people project their grasp and morals on others.

They may yet not recognize that the idea can't work because folks are far more likely to simply maximize their immediate financial returns, rather than care about what the manipulation mechanism - people's posts and comments - say. The constant failure of the idea of whale curation simply doesn't leap their cognitive bias and enable them to grasp reality in this matter. That's really the least scathing speculation I can come up with to explain the present circumstances.

While that may create exactly the situation I predict: a crash in the price of Steem and profiteers bailing, that isn't necessarily the death of Steem. It could be just a setback pricewise, and allow investing experienced or more rational devs to gain the ability to implement sound code that does encourage investment. In the long run, that would be very beneficial and the incredible potential of Steem to form a basis for incorruptible votes on every issue while simultaneously providing funding could create a real form of government that hasn't existed before.

I'm here for the free speech, and that doesn't appear to have been sold off with the marketing department. I'll hang on and see what happens too.