I agree with this entirely and have been outspoken about not only the process of hard forks, but the perception of how they are crafted, proposed, and always accepted. (You can see my official witness posts about this on my @ats-witness account. I know you approve me, so thank you for your continued support!)

The attacks against Steem have always been centered around the notion that it’s centralized (due to the ninja-mine and the development history) and having rubber-stamping witnesses pushing through untested code pretty much validates that criticism. Whether you like the changes or not and even if the hard fork was rolled out smoothly, the perception of Steem would not be affected in any way. The concerns/criticisms are simply never addressed.

I have tried to offer views and suggestions from an investor’s/businessman’s perspective, but there seems to be little interest in attracting these types of people to this blockchain. I’m currently working on an actual project for commerce that will utilize the Steem tokens, but I’m getting practically zero interest/support from those who claim they want added utility and actual businesses.

There’s a major disconnect between what most people here say they want (decentralization, token utility, commerce, and investment) and what they actually do/support. And I think it all starts at the top with Steemit, Inc. and our witnesses.