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This was certainly an interesting week in the Steem ecosystem.  

To quickly recap, @ned dropped some major news on everyone with the announcement that Steemit Inc. laid off 70% of their workforce in an effort to reduce costs.  Things are to the point now with that company, due to the drop in STEEM among other things, that they are looking to survive.  This was totally unexpected by the community and sent a lot of questions through the community.

They held a live stream on Thursday trying to explain some of the plans going forward.  Without getting into the production elements and structure, overall Ned got his message out.  It seems Steemit Inc is going to focus their attention on the coding for the blockchain and creating a platform for developers to create their projects.  Basically, that company is going to withdraw from the social media aspect of things.

Naturally, when something like this arises, one starts to question what will happen?  If Steemit, Inc does go under, will everything go with it?  This is a very legitimate concern since few ever discussed it.  The big issue is the full nodes and the fact that Steemit is running them.  That is part of the cause of the financial woes yet it also means all other applications are dependent upon them.

At least that is what I thought.  Thankfully, we come to find out there are a few Witnesses running full nodes themselves.  One of this is @esteem.  They have a full node running means that if Steemit Inc closed up shop, that application would still be accessing the blockchain.  

Sometimes, it takes a real wake up call to advance things.  People have a tendency to get complacent.  This news sent alarm throughout the entire community.  I think there is a very healthy re-evaluation going on with many of the main players.  Application developers are taking a closer look at things.

I believe these events will, ultimately, make Steem a stronger place.  The full node situation is being addressed by Steemit Inc and many others.  Yesterday, @steemitblog put out a post that talked about moving some of the data to hivemind.   This was mentioned by Ned during the live stream.  The post is a good first step, now it is time to watch the follow through.  

https://busy.org/@steemitdev/upcoming-changes-to-api-steemit-com

There are many ideas being floated about how to both improve things for Steemit Inc while also decentralizing the ecosystem more.  A number of people mentioned how they are going to work towards setting up a full node themselves.  There is also the idea of applications paying something for the node services.  

Over the next few months we are going to see a lot of changes.  That is a positive thing.  In my view, this is far from the end.  Steem is still only getting started.  The idea of being so dependent upon on entity is not healthy though.  I feel the entire community now realizes this.  

@exyle put up a [post]( https://busy.org/@exyle/631s87uz)that discussed how he is going to start doing some greater analysis of the Witnesses.  It is very important that everyone use their witness votes.  While many do not have a lot of SP, it is still important to be involved in the process.  It is an act of taking the blockchain as ours.

Overall, the next three months will see a lot of evaluation.  It will be a time where the actions of Steemit Inc are going to be more closely monitored.  I would believe we will see more full nodes not under their control popping up as more of the Witnesses/developers take it upon themselves to break free from that.  

The path to the top is rarely a straight line.  There are always challenges and obstacles along the way.  The Steem community realizes now the alligator pit it is walking over.  Having this knowledge makes everyone aware.  

As I stated on many occasions, I know there are many intelligent people on this blockchain.  They are now spurred to ever greater action.  This people have the insight and understanding of what needs to be done.  If Steemit Inc. is not capable of pulling it off, these others are.  This is the kind of talent that is amassed.

Just like many obstacles on the pathway of new technology, we will look back 6-9 months from now with a much different perspective.  The blockchain will be in a much different place.  And a great deal of what happened this week will be a distant memory.

It was Steemians call to action.

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