Hive is extremely centralized at this stage of the game.

The top witnesses pretty much all just vote for each other, and blocktrades has the stake to single-handedly decide who gets to be a consensus witness.

On the rewards side of things, the majority of upvotes, and downvotes in terms of weight, all come from just a couple dozen accounts.

The whole thing with Hive is The Code is Law... but the consensus witnesses can change the code whenever they want.

So... the folks in charge get to change the rules as they choose, and silence & financially attack anyone who questions them.

Huh... sounds familiar.