I've been thinking about this issue lately - and I can see from the comments that I'm not the only one.

I still need to write a reply to @trafalgar, becuase I still think he's abrogating his personal responsibility for his actions. But I do agree that things appear to have gone wrong at the system level.

My thoughts for a while have been that an important tipping point will be the amount of SP delegated to bidbots. I think that marks a decent into the more purely 'rent-seeking' cycle that @krnel alerted me to. My worry is that once we go past a certain proportion of SP being tied up in bidbots, the associated 'regulatory capture' of witnesses will mean that nothing will change until something really drastic happens to the steem economy. Maybe we aren't quite there yet, or maybe we've already passed that point.

Here's one thing; we need to be aware that our measure of success might not be the same as whatever @ned and Steemit.inc are using. And it certainly isn't the same as some investors, both large and small, who are not interested in content at all and appear to only be interested in making money while they can, (as well as ensuring someone else is left as the bag-holder).

Anyway, I agree that the steem ecosystem won't hit its full potential, or even survive, if things continue the way they are. Will hf20 and SMTs (whenever they actually happen) fix this, or just kick the can down the road? Too soon to say.

I do suspect @ned is aware of these problems - but this is based on him liking my reply to one of his tweets, so I wouldn't get too excited. That said, this should remind us that there are more ways to rock the boat than just go 'full asshole'. Attracting the right investors and new users is much harder to do with difficult questions messing with your social media vibe.