Decentralization has been the buzz world in blockchain tech since its conception. "Oh cool no more giant corporations sucking our blood! YIPEE!" 

And so came along Steemit. The social network built on the blockchain. A new era for users in which they were the owners of the platform. A happy place where they would be treated fairly, gain privacy, and could get rewarded for their efforts. In buying the Steem token users powered, secured, created and generated value on the platform. How wonderful -"tell the story of the rabbits George"...

But look closer...

"Most of the authors that you see earning high rewards are users that have spent a lot of time in the network building followings, making connections with others, and developing a reputation for bringing high quality content. " - Steemit FAQ

This is bullshit. People with the most Steem didn't earn it through up-votes, building followers, or developing high reps. They bought it.

The wealthy in society are wealthy on Steemit. Big surprise huh? So you're bringing all the inequalities of the current economic system and transplanting them onto a social media platform. Cool idea! ._.

Steemit isn't a meritocracy. Most of the content that trends is paid for via upvote bots. The rest is self upvoted. The content itself is in no way reflective of the payout. Most trending posts are shit, boring, lazy, with no merit and no one in their right mind would want to read it. There could be brilliant posts on this site but will never be seen or read because content quality is irrelevant. The only think talking on steemit is money. 

And further....

"There is a fixed amount of STEEM coins that gets added to the rewards pool each day...voters with more Steem Power have a greater influence over the allocation than voters with less SP, but their votes do not increase the amount of rewards in the rewards pool." - Steemit FAQ 

So this means if you have a big stake of millions of Steem you can upvote yourself and take money away from the rewards pool and simply into your own account. Or you can build a bot and make money out of users by taking a slice of the payment. 

There is no problem with people having personal wealth and whales, but when power and wealth are used at the cost of other people via flagging less powerful users (and destroying them), bots, reward pool exploitation etc. then there is a cost to others. 

The former isn't as big problem as you might think in regards to "reward pool rape". About around 50,000 fresh STEEM will be added to the reward pool per day. The real problem is the Steem is being monopolized into a few user accounts. The more Steem you have the greater your influence over the platform as a whole.  

So you end up with even more censorship than traditional platforms. If a whale wants to silence you they will. 

You can't do this in the real world - you would get prosecuted because people have freedom of speech. - the right to express opinions without censorship or restraint - This doesn't exist on STEEMIT.

You will simply disappear - "post not shown due to low ratings". If you say "I'm not willing to toe the line" you'll get flagged. So flagging becomes a premium service only reserved for the rich who can afford its repercussions. 

Thus decisions aren't made by the "community" but individuals who have millions of votes that no one can stop.

Steemit is already ruled by an elite. Decentralization, in this instance, has failed miserably because it isn't decentralized. Those who own the most steem are the authority. They roll the dice, they call the shots. We're just little people.

The real beneficiaries were meant to be you and me but in reality its the malevolent whales and the upvote bots sucking our blood. The whales are fighting each other trying to gain influence over the platform. (@berniesanders and @haejin et al - the former runs a bot service and flags with impunity).

The truth is, when they post, they're not talking to me and you, they don't want your attention or mine, they're talking to each other. We have no real stake, we're nothing and nobodies. We don't have enough power to be taken seriously. This is proven by the countless accounts destroyed by the mighty for stepping out of line. 

So this is why I am powering down from the platform. Even if Steemit could have made me filthy rich I don't care because I am against the ideology and morality of having a powerful ruling elite telling me what I can and cant say. The politics of the whole thing smell bad. 

I will be moving to a blockchain platform which has a better conception of fairness and is biased towards the average user and not the elite. 

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"But who cares when I'm winning? I'm getting rich. Fuck everyone on the bottom. Hahahahaha." I don't blame anyone for abusing the system, I blame the developers starting from scratch and making all the mistakes that they were trying to fix. And ending up with a platform that's morally bankrupt.