Never mentioned conspiracy.
From the first meeting I attended about this prior to today in Pal server. The only thing heard from witness was the need to have a fork, all based on that if Justin Sun uses his SP to vote for a witness.
The status quo as you say is something that I also feel the majority of Steemit.com user base is a self server one to those same people who decided on the sort fork.
There has been a consistent (from many users and witness) voice speaking out against the present way the governance of the Steemit.com platform. For an example the reduction of votes one person can cast to witness which was ignored and still is. The only reason I can see for this is the maintaining of control over decisions made.
The last HF made it even harder for a new member to gain a foothold on the Steemit.com platform by reducing the value of any vote below a required amount. This is done while at the same time the same witness state that retention of users is needed, Mass on-boarding is needed and the need to bring business to the Steem chain. Business will come much easier with a larger active user base, not by the reduction of it.
We see things from different sides of the wall it seems.
I couldn't agree more with the last 2 paragraphs. I don't get the point of onboarding more users if most of them will be left on seen(except for their intro if lucky), if the same people and type of content will get the votes.
The same frustrations I have with the effects when a small sp holder votes for content, a witness, or an sps proposal.
Yes I know steem is a stake based platform but we should at least pretend a bit that we care about the small sp by using 1 to 1 sp ratios instead of multipliers.
At this point even if i still had the urge to optimistically preach steem and sp I don't how I could keep a straight face saying that each vote adds up, that your voice matters, etc.
Steem may be an undiscovered technological gem but, right now it needs users more than they need it, and should strive to be friendlier to them in all aspects.
Just my 2 cents.