Hey, @taskmaster4450.

I think you've articulated these points about the hardfork very well. The cold hard facts, if people want to view them is such, is that the hardfork exists because of a smaller group of people than those who are now currently using HIVE. The same is true, as you duly note, with STEEM and every other blockchain project out there.

And it is true that they are free to make the rules, which may or may not include letting the community in at some point to help decentralize governance.

Since a good portion of the move to HIVE was predicated on what was considered to be centralization of authority, it would seem to behoove that group to at some point invite the rest of us in, and it certainly sounds like those are their current intentions.

So, we're in a situation now where governance appears to be a little less centralized than it was before, but not quite where many of us will want it to be. And whether or not it ever gets there will probably depend on a smaller group than the 100 you quote, since my guess is, there's a smaller core group that is putting up most of the time, the knowhow and the resources needed to keep the HIVE chain afloat.

As far as the airdrop goes, as you said, that's also their decision to make. I personally wonder at the optics of it, and just how hard a line one can take, or just how unequivocally someone can call it voting for centralization when any of a number of factors come into play.

Trying to determine what constitutes malicious intent is going to be a slippery slope, so it will be interesting to see how this all shakes out, especially if we end up going in a group route, as opposed to case by case, or at least widening the categories of potential offenses.

In my mind, those who thought a stalemate was in the best interest of the STEEM chain, to give all parties the opportunity to voice their views and try to come together does not constitute an outright vote for centralization. Just because some were already done with STEEM in their minds (and probably were the moment Justin Sun showed up on the scene), doesn't mean everyone else was.

So, I for one, can understand why some wanted a stalemate (even if demands were later added to the equation that were either detrimental to the health of the chain or already doable and didn't require a stalemate in governance). Though it didn't really accomplish much else, it did at least slow down things long enough for many of the rest of us to see that things just weren't going to get better.