And pools definitely can't just split the chain or make hardforks out of the blue like in steem where 20 people have that power.
This isn't true in Steem either. Nodes will reject blockchain forks that roll back anything further than a few blocks. It takes consensus among both economically significant nodes and block producers to fork, just as it does in Bitcoin and Ethereum.
Objectively it takes a smaller number of entities to fork or 51% attack the Ethereum network than Steem.
People will always use the node that is used by steem inc because they are the ones running steemit. The primary gateway.
There is almost no other alternative.
congurlation. thank you dear @steemit. I'll be glad if you see my blog, may bee usfull for people. mery chrismass