I prefer the term oligarchy that you used in a prior comment to the comparison to a Royal Family. One is gained via inheritance, and the other usually comes from hard work to achieve the position. Even then, oligarchy is not my favorites either since the implication is usually collusion to manipulate prices and take advantage of others. I don’t think that applies to the top witnesses who I view as being very diverse in character and having a high level of ethics which motivates them to work towards common goals that benefit the majority rather than their minority. After seeing all that they have done (or haven’t done) and the way they’ve gone about it, that’s the impression I have anyway.
The current unequal voting is somewhat of an anomaly in my opinion since it is the result of their attempt to curb self-voting of trash by a select group of whales, among other things. What we have now is certainly better than before, we don’t see $900 rewards on trash posts anymore, and many more content creators are benefiting as a result. However, there is more to do. We need to create more incentives for people to vote comments, for example, and that, in turn, is something that would be very beneficial to the rank and file, giving them power and recognition they deserve.
No doubt about it, all the shortcomings hurt the system as a whole, but this is a work in progress and the responsibility for all further improvements rests solely upon our shoulders. A democracy it isn’t, but it’s resembling a republic more and more every day. We all have to play our respective parts and do the best we can do to constructively contribute to making things better. And they will get better. You mentioned another comment of mine talking about vote equality. I imagine that was in the thread of 
Whenever we go back to pre-HIVE days, I lose, because there is nothing I can say that is positive about STEEM. As I’ve said before, the only thing remotely positive there was the hope that someday things would change … and they never did. As I’ve also said before, the hostile takeover was a blessing in disguise since it got all the procrastinators, all the fearful of change, and all the Kool-Aid drinkers to take finally take action, and things have worked out pretty well. Nevertheless, as I’ve said, there’s much more to do, but least now we’re freed of the previous shackles and able to move forward building on a respectable base that honors and adheres to the core crypto ethos, and that’s nothing to sneeze at.
To give you an even better idea of where I’m coming from on this, I don’t like downvotes at all. That’s a battle for another day, but I consider them to be destructive, and I don’t like destructiveness. Not upvoting is good enough to express that you don’t like something. Why then add something that not only destroys, but also creates animosity and confrontation as well? Not a good thing in my opinion. It’s always better to act in positive: reward what you like and don’t reward what you don’t like. Simple. Who’s really interested in playing God anyway? To be fair, I should say that the reasoning behind downvoting was to combat the $900 reward shit post … but I’m sure we can find other ways to do that in the future.
All in all, I agree with you that this is one of the most interesting projects in crypto, so much so that I decided to come back after seeing all the positive developments we have seen over the last few months. You know, I left Steemit in the summer of 2018 – for many reasons, from personal stagnation there to all the negatives overhanging the community, but I never sold anything that I was still hanging on to, as I refuse to sell low and my analysis was that even though things were bad, they weren’t so bad that another pump wouldn’t happen someday, and as luck would have it, I got the split, sold the STEEM and bought HIVE (at basically a 1:1 exchange) and also added a bit more from a couple of other disappointments that I dumped. So I guess you could say I’ve come back committed, but that’s because I think it’s an incredible opportunity, especially at today’s prices, and more so still if you’re taking an active role in the development process (even if that role is relatively small).
From a purely speculative investment point of view, there aren’t many out there that have as good of a risk/reward, and since this is a long term investment/project, for me anyway, it’s a no-brainer to power up, and I recommend doing so for anyone who buys HIVE. Why just buy and hold when you can put it to work, make yourself heard, and play a positive roll in the development of that investment? Where else do you have that opportunity?
But remember, the real opportunity is in the building. Once it’s all built and working perfectly, the investment part of the equation won’t exist!
RE: Zero HIVE