It is clear to me Steemit Inc as a company is in "survival" mode and as such is looking to drastically scale down it's operations. A case of trying to grow too fast, too soon, in too many different directions.
By the sound of things Steemit Inc will now focus primarily (in the short term) and possibly exclusively (in the longer term) on development of the Steem Blockchain. The indications are that the API Nodes it provides for third party developers and Steemit.com (as an interface into the Steem blockchain) will be eventually wound down.
If you want a flavour for where Steemit Inc could be heading then check out this comment by Smooth. During the Livestream Ned read it through and basically seemed to be in agreement/ receptive to most of it.
My biggest takeaway from this episode is that the training wheels are off of the Steem blockchain. Yes, Steem is already a decentralised DPOS blockchain run by Witnesses on behalf of token-holders, however up until now it has existed under the umbrella of Steemit Inc. A lot of the onus has been on Steemit In to drive the blockchain and innovation forward. Much of this is a natural consequence of Steemit Inc being the largest and most visible stakeholder. However Steemit Inc was in danger of becoming a single point of failure, particular in terms of reliance on it's API node cluster.
Now it is for the community to find sustainable ways to build APIs into and applications on top of the Steem blockchain. I'm confident that, if the community can get this done, we will have a more decentralised (and resilient) Steem eco-system as a consequence.
