For what it's worth - nobody here is trying to convince you to invest. What you do with your money is entirely up to you. If there are parts of the project that you are put off by, then it is completely understandable that you are choosing not to put your money into it.
Nether smooth or I are arguing in favor of preserving the status quoe. The post was written to explain how things currently work today, but it was not intended to say that they have to stay that way forever. Both of us are frequently discussing changes with the community, stakeholders, and developers. We are interested in making Steem the best it can be.
On the particular change of SBD, there are a lot of different views on this topic. While you (and many others) are against having it, there are also many others who are strongly in favor.
Part of the DPoS process that runs Steem is that the views of all stakeholders are important, and the ones with the most stake are the most important. We have to factor in all of the views of the stakeholders to decide/determine what is best.
Right now the stakeholders are in support of preserving and trying to improve/fix SBD. I'm not trying to say that to convince you it is right, or try to say that it will always be the case, but it is the reality of the situation we are in right now.
From my point of view, this is it ok, I would invest in steem if it was only 1 token, steem, I said this at the start, I reiterate that point, this though is only my view, you and smooth both have more followers than me, and you could, if you wanted, do a poll, to see who wants, is in favour of SBD, and who is not, I did this, and got a resounding 100% against SBD, though you could argue and rightly so that I have very few followers, and that would be correct.
Now for the status quo bit, .
As I understand it there are 47 whales, I may be wrong, I can only rely on people like abh12345, and when 47 people control a platform that wants millions of people, yet wants to only service, upvote those they like, circle jerk, know, the system has zero chance to survive.
Quotes from smooth not me.
If you want a fair and sound system, people should be looking at quality of articles, write ups, and voting at present it is not working that way, steemit is a reflection of the real world, those with mined stake, the most power are making the rules, was this the intention? you tell me.
When quotes like that are banded about.
By smooth, it reminds me again of politicians, tow the line or else, and that I do not like, that is the way I am, you can choose to be what you like, a frog even if it suits today, I care not, I am though talking about my point of view, not yours.
The system of governance that we have is not perfect, but IMO it is the best option that there is. Those with the most stake have the most to lose, and are therefore given the most authority over decisions. It is not a guarantee that they will make the right ones. Unfortunately a fully democratic process (along the lines of one user, one vote) is worse since 1. it gives way more power to people who may not really care about what happens since they have little to no vested interest, and 2. it is gamable by abusers who will create multiple accounts to have multiple votes. Finding a system that is perfectly fair and will make everyone happy is probably unachievable.
Like haejin has done for months/years?
No, because the system does NOT work on a one account, one vote basis. Creating multiple accounts does NOT convey any advantage haejin nor anyone else.
I don't know how many 'whales' there. The cutoff between whale and non-whale seems pretty arbitrary to me. For example, when I look at my votes received on steemdb:
So, yes SP matters and if you want to have voting influence you will need to buy SP or earn SP, but the idea that only 47 whales' votes matter is wrong.