I totally agree with all these points.
The other concern I have is if Steem does go up significantly it can hurt the platform as many whales are sitting on a lot SP and it would encourage a mass exodus if the price went up significantly as it would be too enticing.
I'd only be concerned about this if the price ran up with no corresponding change to the platform. If the price runs due to the issues I mentioned getting fixed, then I'd be more than happy to buy up as much Steem as those whales want to drop.
There's a lot of built in incentive to keep your steem in the system. Right now you can easily make 24% returns on your money and you're not going to find that anywhere in the current banking system. If you're a whale and you can live off the money your steem is making and the platform is sustainably increasing in popularity and usage, there'd be a very strong pull to not move your investment anywhere and to instead just reap the rewards of it.
That's even more true now that you can actually just power down a percentage of your steem instead of having to power down everything.
Interesting thoughts, I agree it could be a risk, but if Steem is a good investment many of them will hodl.
It will actually benefit many of us if some of them sell, it will increase distribution of the stake and we need more people with more Steem. :)
Yeah, there is no clear answer. I see many whales in jail they can’t get out easily but they are not actively participating. On the other hand a large increase in steem would be a be hard to resist to many just sitting on SP and not participating. The end result would be a shift in power to the active players but not sure there would be able to get back to where it was.
There's always an interaction going on. If the whales sell their shares because of the price, there is also an ever growing group of people interested in buying.
It may hurt a bit in the beginning, but in the long run it would be beneficial since all the power is no longer shared between a group of early adopters.