Once you get past this slanderous narrative being spun, it's a pretty damn interesting topic to talk about lol.
That is absolutely true! :D I am totally fascinated by all this and the possible implications (regardless of price), while also trying to understand the argumentations of both (or however many sides).
In the end - to me - this all about some pioneer humans trying to handle the gift of decentralisation they have been given, and they just don't know how yet. This is a learning- and also sort of personal development experience for everyone involved, even the ones just watching from the side lines.
Everything comes down to consensus. How do you do consensus best in a decentralised network? It's great that so many people are trying to figure that out right now, especially here on this blockchain, right now, over the past week. If you have different agendas, it's time to part ways --> fork.
Steemit could go down in blockchain history, depending on how this is being solved.
Thanks for explaining the two options in detail. I didn't know about the first one with the 17/21 witness vote. I can see how this one could be seen as theft technically. However philosophically I would argue that it's more of a "returning of what belonged to the community in the first place". I'm not talking about funds, but about power.
I kind of like the thought that "bad actors" who are more committed to their own profit, rather than the wellbeing of the whole network and community, can be voted out by that very community. So, as long as everyone contributes to the network, there's consensus and the community can thrive. The moment someone does something "out of consensus" they get rejected. Just like a bad transaction on the Bitcoin blockchain, only with humans :)
But still, like you say, it would be sort of useless, since Steemit Inc could reverse the fork. Also it seems this game could then go on forever :) Makes me wonder when Dan's Steemit 4.0 is coming out... ;)