Google bought youtube early for a huge sum of cash plus shares. I myself am new here and do not understand if steemit is publically or privately owned as to how it can remain such over time. In other words can it be a startup and launched and then sold off ? or is there something that legally binds steemit to remain out in the open for all users? Thank you
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Steem is the whole system that is build on a blockchain. It's open source and anybody can use it anyway they want.
Steemit is the company that has designed and launched Steem. Steemit also runs this website (steemit.com) that is the first user interface for the Steem blockchain. In the future there will be other UIs too (stand-alone software, mobile apps, other websites) made by other people.
So yes, Steemit can be sold off. But that doesn't necessarily has any effect on Steem. The blockchain will continue to exists and function, it's not in any fundamental way depending on Steemit. Of course most of the developers work for Steemit, so in a practical way Steem is somewhat dependent on Steemit, at least for now.
Please be aware that Steem the blockchain has a strict license, so it's not totally "free to use".