Exclaiming you were right doesn't make you right. The only precedent the witnesses set was that they will protect the blockchain when presented with an existential threat, and I'm glad they did.

In addition to an underlying skepticism that Ned would care enough to do a deal that actually takes into account the community's interests, Justin's own INITIAL actions toward the community were clearly not a good sign. Among other things, he confused Steemit with Steem, talked about swapping STEEM for TRX, migrating dApps, he showed that he clearly had NO IDEA that Steemit's STEEM stake had obligations attached, and he didn't even respond to meeting requests (like, seriously?). This forced the witnesses to act defensively such that nothing crazy would happen.

That's a perfectly reasonable and in fact responsible action considering the circumstances. ESPECIALLY considering that we're not talking about just ANY stake here. We're talking about Steemit's ninja-mined stake which, due to the attached obligations, is CLEARLY a special case.

So please stop pretending the action taken by witnesses has wider meaning and somehow looms over Steem forever. And stop comparing this perfectly reasonable action to the highly unethical action JS took by colluding with exchanges to usurp user stake and lock it up for 13 weeks in order to hijack the network with illegitimately voted sockpuppet witness nodes. Such comparisons are not intellectually honest.

And btw, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that not only was the action taken by witnesses reasonable and responsible, but also that Justin's response PROVED that the concerns witnesses had to begin with were WELL FOUNDED. We now know what JS is capable of. If the witnesses had not acted, in a few months we'd very likely be EXACTLY where we are now, except that JS would be far more prepared to force his will upon the community.

Let's not be so naive, please. Thanks.