Yes, I am unsure how it will all play out either, I don't think anyone truly knows but most hope that Steem will be driven upward.
That is the same reason why we see so many quality content creators spending less and less time on the platform as it simply does not justify time input required for an economically effective activity and those quality content creators often rely solely on monetization of that content that they are creating.
This is the reason for Helsing predominantly as one person (even with all the flags) is still taking 10,000 in SBD a week. that is support for 100 quality producers at 100 each a week. That is a significant amount for a community to grow upon and an individual to invest themselves with.
I am totally on the same page as you are regarding this matter @tarazkp I am not fond of the heavy top decentralized blockchain that ruins the very essence of self governance and reward system. However, it was probably impossible to distribute the tokens, hence influence evenly at the birth of steem blockchain ans nobody knew about it so even distribution would have been extremely difficult. Whales coming in was probably lesser evil for greater good in the future. They have provided demand for STEEM token which resulted in an increased price, right? So getting 100 SBD a week, at a price of 0.05$ is still less than getting 2 SBD at a price of 4$. But i am in no way advocating this, just trying to maintain a flexible approach on the future.
We at BeScouted are very fond of token EOS distribution model by @dan when ICO goes for an extended period of time giving everybody equal opportunities to get hold of a token in equal shares. We would like to adapt this mechanism when releasing our SMT if the system would allow us to do that, or we might go with issuing ERC-20 token and converting it to an SMT later on as even token distribution is completely crucial for a fair reward distribution. Since once you cross certain level of concentration that whole system is ruined as we see happening on STEEM currently. Ofc we can close our eyes and say that it's all right, nothing bad is happening but i personally know dozens or amazing content creators who after giving a try quit on it simply because it's not viable form an economic point of view.
If the next itteration and SMT's won't be able to change that we will find ourselves in a situation where we will witness a birth of new blockchain that will take all these issues into consideration and come up with a solution, rendering STEEM absolete which will still may be adopted and used to some extent because of FOMO but it will never become a revolutionary solution with mass adoption.
I am heavily invested with my time into STEEM solution, and our product is being built on top of STEEM blockchain as well so i am a believer, active believer who will be constantly looking for solutions to current situation. For now i guess i will repeat myself we have to wait and see how SMT's will change current situation. As creating a governing behemoth in a decentralized solution, might be a temporary measure it will be extremely hard to implement not to speak of governing itself.
But something must be done about current situation definitely. And the faster the better.
Hence i am fully supporting your initiative and idea, your bravery to speak up and address the issue and provided i was a whale i would join it with at least 5% of my STEEM POWER.
P.S. I am also concerned about creating and entity that would punish individuals for using the system the way it was designed to be. While many of us would wish that rewards were more fair, but that is also a question of ethics, which are very hard to judge when big money is involved and god know how it could backfire if all whales start dumping their steem token provided there is no incentive for them to hold it. This is arguably still the first iteration of reward distributing system, i have a hope that it will evolve into self regulating mechanism of governance working perfectly in perpetuity,
I am new and I think people need to remember that when a society starts creating systems that harm others to force them to do what is supposed to be in their best interest well sadly the examples in history just are not enough.
The truth is that a system of anarchy has to have its keystone to stand on. In common law it is the understanding of the none aggression principal. "Harm No One". Common Law uses Grand Jury's to indite and petite jury's to convict. It is all based on natural law. The community reserves the right to defend itself from bad actors through the Grand Jury. In America it is called American Jurisprudence.
How does steemit define a bad actor?
Who represents the community? Would that be witnesses?
Who acts as the Sharif or marshal on steemit and arrest accounts for bad acting?
Who acts as a judge and keeps resolution of the conflict on track?
Why not use oaths asseveration or affidavits as a requirement to flag a persons post?
Is there anyone on steemit that doesn't recognize that flags hurt the author and the steemit pool?
Not having these process to resolve issues prevents the society from becoming cohesive and causes it to resemble a pig pen (democracy).
I would like to help? I have ideas based in natural law I think will help. What I don't know is who to share them with?
Steem was supposed to regulate itself through self governance of upvotes and downvotes. And the community itself was supposed to defend it's interest. Just extremely uneven toked distribution makes this system pointless. As even a 1000 members with 100 steempower is not a match for bigger and misbehaving whales. Also flagging posts does not provide any incentive from economical point of view hence it is being used only by some community initiatives lie @cheetah and @steemcleaners but then again their purpose is different.
The real problem is that you didn't take three facts into account. The first one is that steemit is actually a society. To self rule a society must have fair, moral and just rules that everyone comprehends so they can also understand.
The second one is the fact that human beings sadly are not ruled by logic or reason and often have no logic or reason for the decisions they make. Ask someone for the logical reason to like chocolate over vanilla. Personal preference has no logic or reason.
The third fact is the fact that the agencies of our world are not in favor of decentralization and so they send their agents into steemit to reek havoc from the inside. This is why all societies have to have those rules I mentioned.
The reason why I am writing to you is because I don't believe there will be a second chance at decentralization. I also believe that my lack of programing ability requires those who have that expertise learn what I know about building societies and act accordingly or steemit is done.
Don't think that my username is an accident. The key is as I have said. Fair, moral and just rules that steemians ratify or the death of steemit. Remember please that I am no prophet and could be wrong, but I think that what you have witnessed in the recent past supports my claim.
Your posts are amazing