Think that curation is critical to the entire system and it's why we put so much effort into just that.
But if we are starting over and doing things right there are some things that would be changed for sure.
How distribution started off was flawed from day one. Way to many coins were distributed early on which leaves the reward pool much smaller now and in the future. A more balanced inflation system would have made more sense IMO.
Due to the way coins were distributed early on we have to large of a percentage of the coins in the hands of the few and this isn't conductive to stability in price long term. Manipulation is ripe when a few large accounts can cause massive price swings without even putting a large dent in their holdings.
The creators and those on the team should always disclose what accounts they own and all outside holdings. I come from a financial background and the shady backroom nature of how things are done in the crypto world keeps me from investing to much. I invest a ton of time and have put in thousands (bought at the wrong time, and even sold a car for steem) but would invest thousands more if I truly felt like I had an understanding of who really controls the liquid steem and the power accounts.
There is more then just these things, but feel like it will turn into a post vs a comment. But lets just say this if the programmers could stop trying to appear smart and remember KISS we would have a much easier time attracting the masses.
The token distribution on Steem was flawed but not fatal. One of the best things that ever happened to STeem was the bear market. Most of the early adopters sold most of their stake, and the ones that still have it must have a long term view for the platform.
I will venture out to say no token distribution can be anywhere close to perfect. Look at bitcoin; early people got to mine BTC with 50 BTC block rewards on a laptop, now you need asic farms to get a fraction of that.
EOS did a 1-year ICO and still had collusion and whale issues. There isn't an ideal token distribution that I can think about.
With that said, Steem has the best token distribution as of now, with the curation aspect.
Yet. The vast majority of Steem remains in relatively few wallets. The distribution is gradually, almost imperceptibly, improving, but I expect the majority of the reason that Steem hasn't increased in value relative to the larger crypto market is distribution. It remains true that very few stakeholders acting in concert could essentially destroy the value of Steem overnight.
There are multiple mechanisms by which this could happen, and not merely the most obvious of just dumping Steem. This nuke hangs over our heads today, and will until the distribution is no longer so concentrated and the power of Steem so centralized thereby.
The Bear market without question helped correct the distribution. It has allowed a ton of great content producers to increase their holdings while vote selling whales that had no interest in anything other then their own greed sold off. Total Win-Win.
Agree that it can't ever be perfect, but it could have been better. If I start a blockchain of my own this will be a case study I use for sure.
There has to be enough of a reason to attract early adaptors, but not so much as to hinder the future of the coin.
IMO Steem has a ton of potential and I've sold multiple other coins at huge losses to increase my personal holdings. When I came into this market I dabbled in way to many coins and wish I had only bought steem and a few others which I knew were solid. Each of my "gambles" were what I suspected and total shit coins making promises that they had no intention of keeping. Lesson learned on those.
I agree that the distribution could have been better, but Steem lucked out by building this fantastic community that I believe can overcome the initial distribution woes.
The community can overcome a lot of shortfalls as has been shown. Without the community of committed steemians this would have fall apart long ago.
The value of the steem blockchain is only so much, in Steems case the reason I feel it's undervalued is the community that is behind the project.