I don’t see any dangerous precedent at all. In fact, it falls exactly in line with free association and private property.

If a community wants to follow the chain where a group of people felt that existing entities represented an existential threat to long-term decentralization and security, then why should they not go with those individuals who took their computers and software, adjusted some code, and moved on without those threatening entities? Who is harmed in such a scenario?

And if that community proves to be trustworthy and more people want to invest and participate because it demonstrates that it can operate based on common philosophical principles and also defend itself from existential threats, how is this damaging to the overall crypto community?

I would think that such a community that’s willing to make tough choices but adheres to its principles would be a beacon of light in what is mostly a scammer’s paradise. And again - nobody is taking anything at all away from anyone else. The Steem blockchain would continue as is, assuming the remaining users can support it.

Now if such a community just randomly forked away from people for petty reasons, I would expect them to suffer from a poor reputation. But I don’t believe for a second that escaping centralization and a pretty much guaranteed trashing of a blockchain is going to tarnish a community’s reputation at all. And if such a reputation is gained in that scenario within the greater crypto community, then it just reaffirms the view that there are few principled actors in the crypto space in general.