RE: Steem: Softforking, exchanges, security and mining ninjas
For all we know, some may have invested in STEEM precisely because there was such a large stake controlled by a US company, so to argue for your particular financial distribution philosophical perspective is fine, but the witnesses should not assume that every investor of STEEM necessarily shares the perspective that Steemit Inc's stake is villainous and was obtained illicitly, and in fact most investors on this platform did so with full autonomy and ability to know the current stake distribution. The fork changed the rules in the middle of the game. If the governing principle is all accounts have equal rights to their STEEM then governance is simple, but now forcing one's personal ethical perspective onto the financial governing principles makes governing very messy and difficult now that we must decide who is allowed to keep their stake and which must be seized for the "good of the platform." What is to stop witnesses from removing stake they think might have been stolen? The witch hunt mentality of the spam fighting groups doesn't inspire confidence.
Yes, some could have invested for that reason. I do not think the largest stakeholders would have though, they have seen it as a risk.
Every fork does this.
Nothing. Never has been anything to stop this. The functions they used have always been available to them.
I have been here for long enough to know that the amount of SPAM and plagiarism on the platform sucks. I do not think that many people enjoy downvoting - but no one enjoys picking up trash on the highway either, yet people still through garbage out their car windows.
As much as the chain and platforms want to believe, I don't think there's any way to simply code our way out of human biases and error. The more this place develops, the more it sounds like it's just kind of being run by a government entity: You vote for people you trust to do a good job, you vote them out when they suck.
But like governments, there are always caveats to the rules set in place (just look at Trump's Impeachment stuff; an ocean of grey areas) that enables them to continue doing things you don't like - within reason.
I think we are being naive if we think we can iron out all the faith-based elements of the blockchain and just have this pure, robotically rational force driving us to utopia
I think the blockchain communities that succeed will have the most hard-coded protection for rights such as freedom of speech and secure wallets, but as you say it is on the community to form a governance that represents their values.