Look at youtube. Most of the more popular youtubers all know eachother and hang out with eachother when they get the chance. I don't think it's a cirlce jerk as much as if the witness's are working together to make something better you're going to naturally grow tighter as a team.
I think most if not all the information for steemit is stored on a block chain it's going to be hard for people to collude together for control. New steemians come in everyday and start poking around the block chain to see what they can find and what's going on.
I'm excited to see as witness's rise and fall how that effects that path forward and the swings of power for years to come.
Actually, that was one of my favorite parts of YouTube was watching one channel I subscribe to do some sort of video that either included or talked about another channel I was subscribed to.
Hey! TAOFLEDERMAUS just shot a slug AvE made from metal that Cody's Lab got from his mine and HPC had crushed!!