"We really would just need someone with access to investors with deep pockets to slowly buy up enough hive with many accounts then when they have enough put it together and start doing things a bit differently and holding ppl accountable."

Ssshhh! I was totally getting away with it until you outed me! /s

Sure. That's a very viable way to pile up stake without revealing it as a single pile. Some of the whales have >10k accounts, or so one of them told me a few years back, and I have no doubt it's true, since they get free account tokens as a result of their stake. All they have to do is claim them as they accrue. So, they carefully manage their majority of stake to prevent such a plan from succeeding - but any one of them could have a stroke or decide they have had enough and suddenly part with their stake.

The whales have to sell, and generally do so programmatically, or at least that's how they can pull down a steady income from their >90% of the inflation produced by the rewards pool. By flagging off accounts that threaten to keep increasing stake, they prevent their stake weignt from being diluted. By these means they have continually maintained >50% of stake on the platform since it was created, and still manage to sell enough Hive regularly to enjoy comfortable incomes they can spend in fiat.

"We should get rid of downvoting all together..."

I agree. I've spoken extensively on the matter since before Hive existed - but I don't have 50.01% of the stake on the platform, and I can't unilaterally elect witnesses that will run that code. The current ~36 whales (it's usually around that number) that do maintain >50% of the stake on the platform make sure DV's are available to them as a tool to maintain that bare majority of stake, and therefore governance of this pure plutocracy. The Golden Rule on Hive is they that have the gold rule.

The neat thing is that most of the whales mined Steem to get their stakes, ran bidbots during that fiasco, write the code, or scratch each other's backs as consensus witnesses and have since Steem was mined. Only one I know of purchased their stake with fiat (although on Steem the only whale that matters did), and none of them blogged their way to riches.

There have been several forks of Steem, before and after Hive, such as Golos, Whaleshares, and the latest is Blurt!, which has no downvotes. It has other mechanics and no DHF. It's a different platform culturally, and a sizable number there are disgruntled Hive users that came to realize one way or another that DV's are taxes and taxes are theft, usually as a result of being taxed 100% of their earnings on Hive, as I mentioned is an essential strategy of the governing oligarchy above.

I haven't found a perfect fork, and enjoy many of the community on Hive. I'm not here to make money, but for the free speech, so I'm no threat to the whales, and perhaps they are enamored of my charm and good looks, so I have been tolerated for the most part. There's a lot of good people on Blurt! also, but I have been on Hive from the beginning and look forward to being here at the end too.

If you put your devious scheme into practice, you might keep those factors in mind, because with some luck, diligence, and hard work you could succeed. I hope you do. I would love to see Hive freed from the straitjacket of avarice that perennially prevents it's growth and rise to dominate the social media market it has potential to do.