If they wanted their way, they can do the clean fork themselves too.

Its far more complex then that. Its important who does the fork, who is it that keeps the original chain. Whos is it that keeps the exchanges. The devs.

They would have the support of the exchanges as well, being the side with more resources to boot.

Thats not how it would work. Exchanges wouldnt go with it if 1 stake holder forked the chain nothing would happen. If we on the other hand hard forked we would most likely lose in that case.

Thats why a soft fork is so brilliant.

I don't care so much about the governance by the community..

Its really pointless to argue if you dont care what the stake holders have to say. Our values differ.
If i wanted "corporate control" i would have stayed away from crypto.
Also youre dismissing the fact of what Steemit.inc said, what was agreed upon etc.

If this soft fork didnt happen Steem would probably be dead in a short amount of time. His intentions were openly hostile.