RE: My (SWOT) Analysis of STEEM's Strengths & Weaknesses in mid 2017 Make Interesting Reading in 2020!
Interesting, but incomplete, analysis.
DPoS as implemented is governed by money alone. Nothing but financial assets backs the witnesses, and the savagery of acquisition of financial assets has long compelled the largest holdings to be possessions of the least civilized parties. DPoS creates a situation where the most savage financial predators have the greatest ability to govern.
That's currently the situation here, despite that governance presently being at Sun Yuchen's sole option (they clearly aren't the least civilized and most ruthless of financial competitors. They're just the least civilized and most ruthless of those interested in governing Steem. Perhaps if Warren Buffet preferred Steem to lunch with Sun Yuchen he'd take it), and on Hive the oligarchy of old @ned had long allowed to run Steem rules the roost.
With such an obvious and fatal weakness that enables absolute control of every aspect of the blockchain, including total and complete censorship through all publicly available dapps, there isn't much to any argument it has any strength at all.
Your position is really just the observation that the entire concept of capitalism is dysfunctional and heartless - which it is. I am absolutely moving towards reality where imaginary money and corporate fronted machine guns aren't the underlying structure of our survival mechanisms.. But for now, we have hive/steem!
Myriad mechanisms for effecting governance besides stake exist. It is facile to claim it's all just 'capitalism', which governance clearly isn't otherwise. Polities everywhere have always undertaken to govern via mechanisms that enabled the society to create rules that seemed best to them, and none of these mechanisms openly and blatantly were just contests between those with the most stake. Ubiquitously, stake interferes substantially with all governance mechanisms, and is almost as ubiquitously surreptitious and obfuscated as much as possible.
Clearly, it is undeniable that societies seek to effect governance other than simply by obeying the largest stakeholder, and are constantly undermined. DPoS itself continues to be replete with rhetoric that the blockchains are decentralized, that the community controls itself, and the merest examination of what actually puts consensus witnesses in position to exercise governance reveals that an oligarchy of the largest stakeholders completely and totally controls DPoS blockchain governance.
On Steem that's Sun Yuchen alone. On Hive it's the usual suspects, that were in control of Steem before @ned sold Stinc.
We are only allowed to participate. All my tokens are worthless if the governors decide they are.
No, not facile. You highlighted that DPOS is savage due to it's reliance on financial power. Capitalism itself IS the same idea. Those with the most 'capital' call the shots.
Yes, not openly, but in reality they are. Money and land titles create a situation where those with the most get to apply economic pressure to everyone else and if the scales are tipped sufficiently, they become defacto rulers.
I agree that DPOS is imbalanced and tends towards oligarchy - this version of it, anyway, has been designed that way and I have always spoken out against it. The reality, though, is that if we don't like it, we can fork it - which is by design. The idea is that the coders worked hard to make it and if anyone dislikes their creation enough then they would prefer those people to put their own hard work in and stop bitching ;)
I am in the middle, in that I can see from all angles and I recognise that the most important ones in terms of being signals that are likely to lead to success/failure of the chain are those perceived by the most people - which means 'average users'. However, the world is made up of such a wide array of 'similar' and also differing perspectives, that there may be no way to please everyone and so forking naturally follows.
That's not entirely true. If the witnesses decided to fork you out somehow, it is highly probable that the community would either vote them out or fork - ensuring that you and they maintain their tokens.
DPoS is literally just the golden rule: who has the gold rules. On Steem Sun got the founders stake @ned had refrained using to govern Steem with, and on Hive that stake is now folded into the HPS, leaving the formerly lesser stakeholders to @ned now the governing stakeholders.
All that governs either chain is money.
However, many other governance mechanisms exist, and simply claiming that they only conceal the effect of stake isn't factually based. Egalitarian tribes of Bushmen in the Kalahari demonstrate that for the vast duration of human society, stake probably had little to no effect on governance.
Regarding forking out stake or such, which I note is just a form of censorship, the situation @joe.public is in demonstrates that no outrage from the community issues when one of the herd is singled out and ejected.