thanks. i agree with most of what you're saying. except 'balance'.
ned's diagram shows steemit inc running a verification system and behavioral guidelines. it's more like censorship and control.
i'm afraid he's gonna kill it. kill 'wisdom of the crowd' that he's been promoting. kill decentralization and eventually steemit itself. if this roles out and GPT becomes the dominant force, you can be pretty sure it's gameover (unless steemit becomes an entire ecosystem where anybody can create SMTs, but who's gonna want to create one when they know all the front&top pages is controlled by steemit inc?).
i might be wrong because people actually enjoy regulations, censorship, and centralization. so i dunno. but i have money invested in sp. i hope i'm wrong and steem price goes 1000x.
" it's more like censorship and control.
i'm afraid he's gonna kill it. kill 'wisdom of the crowd' that he's been promoting. kill decentralization and eventually steemit itself. "
YOU are seeing much that occurs to me as well. It's not that difficult to take what exists and copy it, move it to another blockchain.
A blockchain with better distribution.
With companies offering millions to motivate developers to create new social media platforms.
With real Decentralization.
Without 51% control by 1 entity.
The motivations to do so are HUGE.
The outcome most likely will look very different from the stiffled and raped rewards pool we see today.
I DO BELIEVE once @ned is actually faced with some "Stiff Competition" (pardon the pun) he will rise to the occasion however ;-)
he did point out that there could be many oracles competing so there's a possibility it might not be so centralized. we'll see how it plays out.
but yes. once people start seeing steemit as a centralized system, it's going to be vulnerable.