The sad fact is, this social site is what has made Steem unique so far. And despite all the talk I hear of decentralization, watching the fire as Ned has made his recent announcements has proven that most of those with the knowledge in making this chain become what is claimed it could be have done nothing other than make as much as they can off of Steemit.inc.

I have even wondered (it has gnawed at me since I joined) why Dan couldn't use his expertise (I mean, he wrote this and premined quite a bit) to create awesome projects away from Steemit.inc.

Many like myself got into crytpo because of Steemit, and problems it addressed like avoiding exchanges, wallet security etc. I further ask, if this site dies, what exactly is that proving is possible to potential further apps?

Further questions:

If this site dies, what becomes of the Steem pool? Guessing most will be like myself and have no access to it, which means any stake we hold is chipped away at by the inflation (I have always seen this is a deterrent to normal investors who have no desire of blogging or curating).

If this site dies, what will this do to further erode the perception issues Steem has had? What impact on its use at exchanges? We have already seen how often the wallet goes down and how long it takes to get fixed. If they go down again, who gets them back up?

These are just a few of the many questions I find myself asking now. Steemit brought a lot of people like myself who are ignorant when it comes to crytpo, and it is/was shortsighted to not understand the importance of this offsetting the bad rep they had from premine in the more knowledgeable crypto community.