Who can do something about this ? How many people among those that can bring about the next HF agree with your analysis ?
Maybe that would be among the first things to implement - a mechanism to ensure more transparency.
Who's who among those who are in a position to make Steem/it evolve (I only know the name of Ned but who else is working with him?). And what do they think about the way Steemit has evolved.
I've listened to Ned's post about the roadmap and he didn't seem to acknowledge the major governance problems, he seemed to mostly look into technical milestones and to focus on SMT. So as far as Steemit is concerned, and its soft governance rules, is there even a pilot in the plane ?
Then we would probably need a kind of Pledge for Whales, some kind of responsibility pact - prevent them from abusing the platform and maybe implementing rules for forcing those who do not adhere to a minimum set of norms to power down ...
Sounds extreme maybe but in the end I bet that if Steemit is to succeed, we are going to rediscover and recreate the mechanics of the human society. It will be a cold shower for all the young anarchists believing that "changing the system is easy" when they'll realize that our societies have mostly grown organically and what we experience today in the real world is a Nash equilibrium - given who and how we humans are, it's almost possible but very hard to get to a better social system.
If Steemit is to succeed, I posit it will look a lot like our society, with checks and balances, and people who complain about them
I personally could not agree with you more on this issue! In this environment we are in the minority. I have written elsewhere about Steem governance, but I believe that Steem is currently being governed the way it was intended to be governed. As a decentralised, anarchistic environment. I think some sort of centralisation is necessary to allow growth longer term. Growth requires decision making, and the ability for decision makers to be agile to respond to changing environments. We don't have either of those things currently. We are a minority here though.
With respect to who agrees with me. I'm not sure. I don't know if this series is catching the attention of those in a position to influence change. I suspect that it isn't. But if enough people are talking about it then the issue has a better chance of rising to the attention of those with the power to do something about it.