Do you really believe that Steem platform is a democracy? Because it isn't. It was never meant to be. In my view, it is a business model to exploit on.
The only team member who had strange dreams of Steem becoming some sort of anarcholiberal platform has left the building a long time ago.
We operate using the design laid down according to the original vision and ned has spoken previously along those lines. No-one has officially said that "oh, dan is gone, now we are going to just exploit everyone because there's no idealism involved any more". As stated, I don't consider democracy to be a particularly good model anyway, but the point is that a 'deep state' is even worse and is exactly the type of problem that I am seeing posing a threat to the basic design principles that make Steem unique and that give it a selling point.