in theory this sounds good;
hosting is only a small part of the core job of a top 19 witness in Steem. Witnesses also have very important responsibilities in evaluating updates and deciding whether they are in the best interests of the stakeholders, serving as stakeholder representation in offering feedback to developers on direction (in part since developing updates that won't be accepted is foolish), maintaining the SBD peg, planning for scaling of the infrastructure, and other management and leadership roles. Recently there has been discussion of adding more witness parameters aside from the SBD peg. If this occurs, then the responsibilities of witnesses in deciding on and maintaining these parameters will increase.
but as SBD keeps dropping, the only thing we really know for sure is that the witnesses suck at their job
yeah, yeah, I know I used a 'mean' word, so now your brain will explode with hate and anger, so much so that you can't come up with a proper rational answer, so let me help you; as long SBD keeps dropping, the only thing we really know for sure is that the witnesses suck at their job
I agree witnesses have done a poor job on SBD. The problems are likely contributed to by issues with the design (including some early issues with the now-disabled liquidity rewards which complicated matters), but witnesses still could have done better. Since this issue came to light with Dan's post on supporting the peg, I have been doing my best to try to better understand and improve the situation, but it is a bit of too-little, too-late.
It wasn't really, not from the start. That's why it was set up as a ninamine/fastmine. If they had wanted it to start decentralized they could have been more open about the launch and distributed most of the stake over a much longer period (months or years) instead of a few weeks more or less in secret.
It was intended to start centralized and may eventually become more decentralized as insiders and early miners sell off (and in the case of Steemit, give away) stake. That may have been a good plan, it may have been a bad plan, I can't really say. Either way, whatever you believe, don't thank (or blame) me, it wasn't my plan.