The 'individualized' witness system on Hive is actually more resistant to state pressure than the system on ETH. Stake pooling does not in itself improve the resistance to state pressure - it's ultimately the node operators that the state can apply pressure to alter block production and enforce a censorship regime. Pooling doesn't change things because most of the stakers are not running a node, but merely pooling along with a person or institution which is.
Indeed, the fact that so many institutions are involved is the problem at ETH. Institutions are often the ones running the pools and the key nodes, and institutions find it much more difficult to move and leave a hostile jurisdiction than individuals do. Institutions are much more likely to be inclined to ultimately comply with state demands, which is indeed what we have seen with exchanges over the years in the crypto ecosystem.
Is your suggestion that 20 individual witnesses are less centralized/individualized than the untold amount of folks holding 36 (?) ETH or more? Even should the large ETH pools be targetted a system seems in place where anonymous individuals can pick up the slack. This seems not the case, to me, with #HIVE.
It doesn't take "untold" amounts of validators to make a majority and thus alter consensus on Ethereum. What matters is the number of institutions and/or individuals operating nodes (the number of nodes they operate is irrelevant when they're operated by the same people or institutions) with sufficient stake to have over 50%. And the fact that such a large amount of staked Ethereum is held and operated by institutions (exchanges) particularly makes it vulnerable to state pressure. 3 of the top 5 entities in Ethereum staking have already bowed to state pressure in the past. If there is any weakness in the decentralization of LIDO (itself having a small number of people who own more than 50%), then those 3 along with LIDO would have the 50% required to implement a censorship regime.
Thanks for your replies. Your insights are most welcome to me at this time.