I agree with you, @hobo.media!
This stalemate, despite the votes to regain control of the TOP20 potentially exists, demonstrates the discontent of much of the community.

Thanks for throwing us all under the bus with your disgusting attitude.

Yep. I don't agree with all of this, but there is a lot of truth in there. Steem has mostly had the same groups of people calling the shots. They have gotten steem from a top 5 coin to a top 80 coin, not entirely by their own fault, but they have been a big part of it. For whatever reason steem has been very anti-business. When new people have shown up and not played exactly by the community rules, they have been run off, and people have high-fived about it. I think many here in the broader community would love to see things shaken up on here.

Would the circle-jerk be decreased as people join Steem to vote to balance or counter-balance and better compete with the whales, the dolphins, the sock puppet accounts, the duplicate accounts, bots, etc? I would say I hope so. And that is one of the problems, that Steem has only around a million people or a lot less active users each month as opposed to like billions like Facebook and YouTube got.

Fighting abuse is not anti business. Take a closer look and you'll see which side the legitimate businesses are on.

>The Crypto Youtubers are famous among the whole of the crypto industry with many followers on Youtube, Twitter and Facebook. But these people barely make anything and rarely touch trending on Steem.

Most of them just share their YouTube links just to earn some extra crypto and pfff, they are out. They don't engage, they don't build, they don't even reply to those who take the time to watch their vlogs and drop comments and they definitely don't shill Steem...

Those are the Youtubers you are referring to? 

>A lot of people disliked the free downvote mana bar, but they weren't powerful enough to stop it.

A lot more people like it. Good riddance to those who don't start your own business with vote-buying enabled and see how far that gets you. Hint, you will certainly fail.

>Many people, I included, feel that Steem has been dominated by a small crowd of anti-business tyrants that ruin the whole blockchain and screw Steem's future.

Steem is open for business as long as the business isn't exploiting the reward pool. If you want support from the community, come up with a good idea.
> The Crypto Youtubers are famous among the whole of the crypto industry with many followers on Youtube, Twitter and Facebook. But these people barely make anything and rarely touch trending on Steem.

I've followed crypto-YouTubers on Steem. Most of them rarely engaged on Steem and just directed people to external channels. There are a few onboarding ideas to bring some of these people back, but it is either an advertisement or a 2-way street.

> Because this place is nothing more than a big circle-jerk, wherein the key players keep milking the reward pool in hopes that it won't end soon. 

So you think bidbotting is going to solve this problem? The youtubers who get upvoted on Steem are focused on Steem.

> Justin is not probably good for Steem, but a lot of us are at least glad to see the old hierarchy getting broke up. 

A lot of the 'hierarchy' are individuals who are very good for Steem. Do you want to see them fall out of favour quickly? Well, a few just did by making really bad choices. It's not the first time it happened either. Why would we want to punish the people who have been around forever building their accounts and helping the community? Sure they have become powerful, but name me a few who didn't earn it.

> And if he sells off his stake it will mean low prices for a while, but it could also mean much more decentralization.

Low prices are great for people who can afford to buy like me, and don't need the income. But there are a few very good and important people around here who rely on income and cannot afford to have whales intentionally manipulating or crashing the prices. I'm not talking about people who are just shitposting either, I'm talking about people developing stuff, running servers, etc, who depend on their income. If they have to leave, Steemit will be all there is left and well, they aren't doing so much these days.
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Although technically correct, I don't think dumping on the market is a good way to encourage decentralization. I'd rather see it go to developers who slowly sell it while improving Steem because then we win in 2 ways. I can't believe how many people fail to see this. There is literally no advantage to us simply giving the coins to Justin. If we wanted his help, we could have made a 'pay Jusin' SPS. We would probably get their help for a lot less than 65 million Steem and none of the drama or force 'agreements'.