Very cool post @aggroed . I like the tone of this post as well as the content. WE all have to live by our own rules, and through consensus we are finding a common ground of what is OK and what is not. It's good to see this discussion happening, and some efforts toward keeping the 'company' that we are all invested in to be honorous as well as lucrative!
I know many whales are working really hard on keeping Steemit on the good path, and i DO have faith and confidence that even though (right now) it is somewhat of an oligarchy.. that in time things will spread out a bit more evenly. What I am REALLY happy about is that despite reward pool rape by many with a lot of power, they also have a genuine love of Steemit and generally act in a decent and cool manner and have good intentions.
The big difference between Steemit Oligarchy and Centralised State Run Oligarchy is that we all genuinely DO have the opportunity and potential to rise up and become one of the big fish. No one can stop that here, and this is Steemit's 'Get Out Of Jail Card', ... that it IS decentralised in the most fundamental ways..
Ommmm