Yea advertising is pretty much the bane of internet existence. So many had all sorts of hopes and dreams about the net changing the world...it didnt, the world changed the net. Sort of what will happen with crypto.

You also asked this question "But then, why be decentralized at all? "

I think of much of crypto peeps saw what satoshi pulled off and got super excited with a "new" technology. I think because it was new many of the developers who didnt really grasp decentralization but thought it was catchy and cool jumped in on it....not really seeing it as a need but a hype train to get on.

Steem is at best a bastard monstrosity of decentralization because lets face it because of how things started its all centralized anyway. It makes a good selling point but its not even close to the reality.

Thing is if this place launched smooth and professionally it wouldnt nearly be as exciting as it is now :)