It was not a shitshow. People had freedom to choose, which is not a shitshow. On-chain governance is worse (read: coercive) than vote-by-node. Ethereum Classic is technically the original Ethereum chain and they are very free to remain doing things as they wish. However, the majority of people and projects chose the chain known today as
"Ethereum" because they felt different about the decision.
Steem is different. Because a very small number of nodes decide everything, all you have to do is hijack the nodes, which happened here, and boom, chain is officially centralized and under the control of one corporation. Consensys does not have that kind of power.