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It was obviously meant to be decentralized but then some 40-50 people initially gained or bought large stakes in the platform and the future of steemit basically depends on those few people way more than the other 100k users.

So it definitely has a power structure to control major aspects of the site.

But here's the problem, at what point does a decentralized platform become centralized, what fraction of users should own what percentage of stake in it for it to be called "centralized" ? It may be 50-100 users now with substantial powers to steer this thing the way they want, but those numbers obviously aren't going to stay like that, they will grow and the ownership will get further distributed

My point being, you can't really classify something as either this or that, its not as black or white like that.

It says "no single entity can censor content that is valued by STEEM holders"
Lol, in theory, that sounds nice. But a "single entity" if possess enough steem can easily censor something upvoted by 1000 other users.

Its analogous to stating "no info that is valued by billionaires will get censored "

"no info that is valued by WHALlionaires will get censored "
+1000
"obviously meant to be decentralized but then some 40-50 people initially gained or bought large stakes in the platform and the future of steemit basically depends on those few people way more than the other 100k users"
+10000

Not so much censorship, more invalidation of any 'income' despite popular up-vote, Whales can sink any content at any time to the realm of invisible/insignificant.