Thank you so much for your helpful comments, @moeknows! I appreciate your support for this study.

I read your replies carefully and would love to hear more about that. Below are a couple of follow-up questions. You can also reply to those in Discord (username: raci#0278) if you were more comfortable doing that.

There is speculation, fueled by public statements made by the new owning entity, that the entity had intentions to assimilate Steem with another cryptocurrency.

Which public statements are you referencing here? Can you provide the source?

It solved the immediate problem of being under control of a single entity. It also solved the problem of the Genisis stake which was promised to never be used in governance. Essentially decreasing the threat of a centrally managed governance.

What do you think will be the long-term implication of this? How will this affect governance (who owns and controls resources on the platform)? How will this affect user behavior (how content is created and curated)?

Hive has mitigated it by requiring that funds be powered up for 30 days before they can be used for voting. Also, since the Genisis stake is now dedicated towards development, any new "threat" would have to be purchased on the open market.

Isn't there is still a considerable risk of collusion inherent to the DPOS mechanism when stakeholders with a disproportionate stake collusion? Especially given the skewed wealth distribution on Steem (and hence, Hive)?

Not a witness, but I would like to see more of a push towards decentralization and mitigations for some of the privileges of stake, especially on the social side of the things.

What could be some potential downsides of decentralization? From your perspective, is more decentralization always better, or is there a valid case to be made for more centralization on the platform?

Hive because I like the vibe and feel that there is a greater chance for decentralization which enables me to have greater influence (albeit still miniscule) over the governance of the chain.
Steem because a lot of my friends are still here and I still want to support them. There is also a nostalgic pull as I have "grown up" there in a sense.

So, it seems that users will have to choose between greater decentralization (and hence, participation in the governance) in Hive and social and emotional capital they have already built up on Steem. Which of the two do you think will matter more to you (and for users in general) in the long term?

Also, how would your choice be impacted if one of the two platforms (or both) turned out to not be economically sustainable?

Thank you again for your help so far, and any further help would be greatly appreciated :)