@moeknows,

Presumably, Justin didn't drop USD $12 million for no reason.

He wanted a "crypto-based social media platform" on TRON to offset EOS' launch of Voice. And hence, the Steemit buyout announcement on Feb. 14, the very day of the long-awaited Voice Beta launch. Justin Sun was trying to steal Dan Larimer's thunder (and it worked).

But what good would buying the Steemit stake be without a plan to change the strategy that had resulted in STEEM/Steemit's stagnancy?

What could Sun possibly do that would be more effective (and cost-effective) in attracting new Steemit users than to ensure that ALL SP was used for curating content? And by all, I'm not just including the SP diverted into DApps but also the massive Steemit stake that has here-to-for not participated in curation.

Imagine that everyone now making $5.00 per post started making $20.00. Activity would skyrocket. Inactive users would become active. New users would sign up. STEEM held on exchanges would be converted to SP so as to increase earning potential (both from content creation and curation). The liquid STEEM supply would be thereby reduced. The ever-increasing money supply, caused by distributions from the Reward Pool, (price-deflationary) would now get absorbed by the increased productivity and increasing user base ... and the price of STEEM would go up. An increasing price would attract more users and investors ... a positive feedback loop.

Whether this occurred to an nominally independent STEEM/Steemit or one that had been merged into TRON would make little difference as the dynamics would remain the same.

The point is that if this happens, SP would no longer be available to fund DApp development ... and it is this, I'd proffer, that was the source of DApp developers' (and interested parties') fear and discontent. What would be good for content creators would not be good for them. And hence, the rather astonishing decision to freeze the Steemit stake in the SoftFork. Steemit bloggers weren't facing an existential crisis, DApp developers were.

Quill