You said:
As you probably know, @dantheman is libertarian who hates theft, so it's not a surprise that he downvoted you.
But why do we have to put words into his (Dan's) mouth to justify his actions? This lack of communication is likely a factor in the failing confidence within, and falling price of, Steemit/ Steem, as the original poster (@steemship) has so clearly demonstrated.
We need an open discussion about this most important topic of how to more evenly distribute voting power, and/or if such an action is necessary, if for no other reason than to quiet some of the fears regarding apparent weaknesses of the Steemit system, which have only become more pronounced over time and amplified by the lack of clear communication, from the top, about possible solutions.
Silence isn't the answer here, nor is stubbornness. Trust is built through transparency and by consistently demonstrating that care is taken to the considerations of all involved/ invested. The block-chain that runs Steem is one layer of transparency, but the more more important layer - the people who control the hard-forks - are not forth-coming with any kind of clear plan, nor demonstrating to me in any way that they have any care beyond their own wallets.
If you ask me, Dan's recent actions - the proposed hard-fork, with seemingly little concern for the generally bad review that it received from the community and his childish/ cowardly/ unprofessional way of dealing with constructive criticism/ alternate approaches - reeks of your typical penny-stock CEOs. It appears to me that every decision coming from the top is aimed at protecting themselves, even at the cost of strangling the smaller investors. But maybe it only appears that way because they've failed to accurately communicate their intentions. Ideally, we wouldn't have to speculate about such things, especially when considering that these "policy makers" are running a social media network. Oh, the irony.