Steem vs Steemit?

Ned responded about Steem not Steemit Inc. Steem is owned by the community not by Steemit Inc.

That's cute – but for all intents and purposes in the real world, Steemit owns the steem blockchain. They are funding and providing the underlying source code which drives the blockchain. They are, in theory, responsible for promoting and securing significant investors. They are, without a doubt, the greatest holders of stake, the most responsible as a result, and have the most to lose.

Steemit Inc. is steem. If you believe that the steem blockchain would continue to exist if Steemit Inc. picked up and disappeared, I have some lovely oceanfront property in Nunavut that I would love to show you.

You would have a basis of argument if the software running behind each of these nodes wasn't effectively driven by a corporately paid group of programmers. The recent unpleasantness with hardfork 20 puts a double underline beneath how beholden the steem blockchain is to Steemit Inc. as an entity.

Corporate vision for Steemit Inc. is the vision for steem as a blockchain.

Remember, this is a proof of stake system. Stake denotes control. Steemit Inc. possesses that control, definitionally. It is exactly for Steemit Inc. to make that decision, because they have controlling interest in the blockchain.

And this highlights a flaw in the design of DPOS. You are making Steem look like a security.

I'm not making it anything. If it looks like a security that might be because it behaves like a security.

What you observe is not a flaw in the design of distributed proof of stake. It is literally the selling point for distributed proof of stake. "If you have more to lose, you have more say" is the whole point of the argument for the method of governance of proof of stake systems. It's a pretty good argument – but it has definite repercussions when it comes to the truth of the way the system works.

Steemit Inc., but because they have the most stake, has the most control – by orders of magnitude. Ergo, their corporate vision is the vision for the blockchain, and if we can't get them to speak clearly and openly about it – that speaks ill of the future of the blockchain.