This is how any interference, regulation or ban begins. There are either bad actors, or the appearance, potential or fear of them, so someone—big government, big media, big business, big somebody—has to rush in and save the people from themselves.

If there is an inevitability to the change coming, than these large, old institutions will fight it, ban it, buy it, blame it, condemn it, but never try to compete against it because they know they can't. And as they collapse from within they will try to take as much of the new infrastructure with them as they go, leaving just enough distrust and doubt in the minds of the people that these purveyors of lies and half truths can worm their way back into the new and evolving system.

As long as Steem stays decentralized as it grows, it just might overcome this cycle of first being the disruptor, then the solution, and then the corruptor. I hope so. The world needs a shake up of biblical proportions, and unfortunately, that usually means tragedy and death. If we can skip the tragedy and death part and just go straight to the major change, I'm all for it.