The cryptocurrency known as Steem, sits atop of the Graphene blockchain. Blockchain technology, by it's very nature is decentralised (to a point).
However this has led to much confusion in the Steemit community, because whilst Steem is a decentralised cryptocurrency; Steemit.com or rather the company Steemit inc. is very much a centralised organisation.
This is because Steemit inc. is a company incorporated in the United States of America; thus on the incorporation documents it will have the name of the shareholders, and the "people of influence", and guess what?
Your name isn't on there!
What??? I thought holding SP meant I was a shareholder?
Nope, the only thing that makes you a shareholder of a company, is having your name on the incorporation documents, stating that you are. Or of course, if you buy some shares from a shareholder, or that are publicly offered on a stock exchange.
Having Steem Power makes you a stakeholder in Steemit; however so does visiting the site and reading articles without voting; or any other kind of interaction you have with the site.
The only thing that will make you a shareholder in Steemit, is for you to obtain some actual shares; got it? Good.
Steemit.com owned by Steemit inc. will never be a decentralised platform; why? Because in order for it to do so, Steemit inc would have to give up all rights to the IPs surrounded Steemit, and that's not going to happen, not necessarily because there is no willing from the Steemit owners, but rather an issue of profit, loss and taxation.
True. But my suggestion wasn't directed to Steemit Inc.
What I was tryting to say is that we may consider banning abusive accounts through a hardfork. Steemit Inc does have influence on hardforks, yet there are a couple of more parties who do as well :-)
Whether Steemit Inc is a centralized company or not, doesn't really matter in this context. What we need is a consensus about how to deal with abuse and tools to help users to better protect their assets.
Many of us watched the Net Neutrality Panel with Ned Scott at Consensus 2018, where all speakers openly admitted that 100% decentralization doesn't exist yet. At no place. We're slowly walking towards such a concept, but revolutions need their while...:-)
Thanks for your addings!
Holding SP does mean you're a shareholder in the value of the Steem network though. While this doesn't mean you have any share of Steemit, Inc it does mean you own influence to the actual Steem blockchain network and can influence it's decentralized nature by voting for witnesses that are aligned with your thought process. While this is certainly not ownership in the company Steemit it is a share of the network's operations and influence towards it.