Clearly a system with a single divisible vote would be much more desirable and more universal than a system where we have to target specific accounts because they're "scary". But I can kind of get behind the reasoning if it is only a temporary measure to fix the weakness rather than use consensus mechanisms as negotiation tactics.
I have kind of a big issue with this whole concept.
Nothing is ever temporary. No system which is ever put in place to control other people is only there for a little while. Once it's proven to be effective, somebody will have a good reason – which is almost always a bad reason – to keep it in place. If by some amazing accident it's proven to be ineffective, it will hang around forever because "what harm can it do?" And then it's guaranteed that someone down the line will find a way to use that power to do things I find objectionable because they're essentially authoritarian.
There is no outcome from this which can ever be good.
That it actually goes against one of the central tenets that the blockchain itself is based on, that "SP is voting power," one of the central things that we are told, constantly, is what democratizes the blockchain, and that this action is being independently pushed by people who have said that the fact that voting power is intimately connected with the amount of SP you have is a good thing – none of it fills me with a good feeling.
The last thing you want is for there to be an even larger precedent for disempowerment than there has already been set by the mechanisms of the system. Seriously. The very last thing. Because if a minority of the voting power can decide to silence and quell the majority of the voting power, what chance do any of us who don't even have a particularly notable share of the voting power have to be heard if we step wrong?
This goes back to something that I've felt uncomfortable with regarding the Steem blockchain for a very long time, all the way back to my early days on the platform, which is the overall comfort with authoritarian, top-down, power-first solutions rather than actual distributed, individual-focused choice-based mechanics.
The Steem blockchain is a Proof of Stake system. Justin Sun has access to more stake than any other active inhabitant on the blockchain. As such, he has established the basic controlling interest via the mechanism that we have been told is the best one for determining who gets to make those decisions. Proof of stake and maintaining the administrative lever it provides is central to Steem as a blockchain. If it can't be maintained by the people at the top, if they can decide, "no, that's no longer true as far as it applies to us," then there is no blockchain. The one thing it's built on goes away. And incidentally, the one thing that we have been told for years that is the main selling point for investors on the platform goes away.
I am perfectly willing to say that I don't have a particularly large amount of trust for Justin Sun, but I have an equal amount of trust for him as I do any of the major stakeholders, many of which are witnesses, and all of whom engage in some pretty questionable, shady behavior when it comes to the blockchain.
I would respect the people who think that Justin Sun is "scary" if they decided to go off and start their own blockchain focused on social media exchange based on the seed content and technology of the Steem blockchain. It would start an absolute shit storm of "how dare you take that, you don't own that" which would be an absolute lie in terms of what you agree to when you sign up for the platform, but at least it would be bold, interesting, and not set a terrible precedent for the future.
Unfortunately – we've got what we've got.
I agree with you on this point. I think the point that I was trying to make is that I would be more sympathetic to the idea of using such a fork as a means of buying time (which it clearly isn't) in order to make changes and then vote on them, but even then, like you mention, the "community" can just fork the code and start a new blockchain. It would be a much more principled move given all the stake they would be giving up, but it would clearly emphasize the point that the witnesses have been claiming to make the past two weeks or so.
Honestly, from the perspective of someone who is not totally invested into the transcendent idea of blockchain technology, Justin Sun just isn't scary. He is finally what everyone who has been screaming about investment on the blockchain has been clamoring for: a rich investor with an interest in cryptocurrency and a legitimate stake in the business who wants to bring a big pile of money in exchange for a big pile of STEEM. That is what everybody has been telling us that we need, "more big investors." "More business."
They finally got what they want.
And then they suddenly realized that in a Proof of Stake system, the guy with the stake makes the decision. Just like they always have. It's just that Justin Sun isn't "one of them." They fully expected to be agitating for one of their own to be "the guy" and JS coming in from outside and promising to be an active player – that wasn't on the agenda. So they freaked and they show their hand as regards what they really think about distributed governance. It's fine as long as it's distributed to them. It's not fine when someone literally plays by their rules and just has more resources to burn on that stake.
For us little players at the bottom who will never and would never have any kind of governance role or input into the witness slots in a meaningful sense, the only threat is that Sun will shut down the blockchain, and that's not much of a threat considering how much money he just spent to own it. He's not going to shut down Steemit because he expects to get some sort of value out of it first. Of course he does.
For us, the question is whether JS is better than Ned and/or better than whoever it is that actually owns the stake in the pool before he got here. It would be hard to be worse so – I guess I just don't have as much fear as they do. I can't find any reason to.