right on whatsup, i always appreciate your straight approach. i appreciate the experiment too and would also love to see some monetary dividends someday.

now I am wondering if we are really supporting any of the ideas of cryptocurrency, decentralization, immutable, censorship-resistant.

this sentence rings so true to me. it's similar to the "eco-village" thing that humans try cyclically to create- living together in community, sharing things to varying degrees of success and trying to live sustainable lifestyles. i've read that nearly 90+% fail. it boils down to the fact that we don't know how to live that way and it's really really hard to ground an alternative way of being.

crypto, decentralization, censorship-resistance... these too are hopeful ideals that we as humans don't have much practice in living out... some of us wake up from the bad dream that is the modern age and we are thirsty, so thirsty for these "alt" ways of being only to realize that we need so so much practice.

i , for one, also don't think ned is being malicious by any stretch of the imagination, but i do think he has been "resting on his laurels"- like so many in the space, and that i suppose as his pockets have been padded, he lost a true skin in the game. that's my felt sense anyway. yet ned and steemit inc and our thirst for them to lead kind of harkens too closely back to the demands of centralization, doesn't it?

in the end, i think it's healthy that we're breaking our dependance on them. sometimes cutting ties hurts. but , from what i've seen, i don't think this community will die. way too many incredibly talented people care way too fucking much. and isn't that practicing decentralization after all? :)