I remember, that I not always agree with you (for example about SBD), but stil your opinion was meaningful for me and for many other people here.

I believe, the solution is... to separate more Steem and Steemit. Steem should belong to community, and this mean, that community should decide about direction of development.

That's why right now I am working on Steem.Vision: https://github.com/noisy/steem.vision

This is going to be Poll/Survey service build on top of Steem blockchain
this will be like https://steemit.com/@clayop/voting-test-do-you-think-changing-to-a-flattened-curve-is-urgent

but with custom interface, and... the most important, deep analytics:

• how whales/dolphins/minnows voted
• how voted people which mostly writes comments vs. mostly authors vs. mostly voters
• how people which powered up in last month voted in compression to people which are powering down

and..
something what can be helpful for witnesses:

how supporters of particular witness voted for particular question
steem.vision will be mostly asking people about vision and future of Steem blockchain. This should help block or force certain features.

I believe, that it takes time to organize everything. Steemit probably will be driving force for a while.... but we as a community need to prove, that we have voice, that we can block unwanted hardforks or introduce own changes.