RE: I'm not giving up on this:
Exchanges did that per request of Steemic Inc. To the outside world (including exchanges) Steem looks like a proprietary blockchain, owned by Steemic Inc, no matter how many times you tell them that Steem is not Steemit.
Just fork Steemit out, give it a new name. Steemit and it's stake have always been a source of discussion since day 1. But it has been tolerated long enough. They have had 4 years to prove been able to do something useful for the Steem community. They failed to do so. Instead the owners bailed, selling the company for some money.
The new owner has shown his intentions and hostility towards the eco-system. If I was responsible for the team of HQ decs quitting, for iniatiating a governance take-over by lying to my friends, for attacking long standing and appreciated members and more..
I vote for you as witness, because I believe you have the best interest for the chain at heart. I expect you to mitigate attacks on our community and security with swift but responsible measures.
Who decides? The community decides in the long term by voting witnesses. In the short term the top20 decide. Choose your decisions carefully.
Personally, at the moment it seems like the @blocktrades project is something I would be behind.
Yep. I've been (loosely) involved with the group working towards a new chain for a little while now. I would prefer all those conversations be open and fully transparent, but organizing such a large community of diverse opinions is very difficult so there's a smaller group of witnesses, stake holders, developers, and app owners that are moving things forward to new possibilities and everyone will be free to choose if they'd like to come along using their airdropped tokens. Everyone but the ninja-mined Steemit stake, of course.