I have found that it actually isn't terribly decentralized. Now, this is only my opinion, and I have nothing with which to substantiate it, but I believe that it was created by someone who is close with the whales. There are around 250 authors on steemit who 1) began making tons of money and had tremendous visibility with their very first posts, and 2) consistently are the top earners on the site.

The great majority of us have almost zero visibility on what we write, and earn almost nothing by contrast.