Participant’s voice I believe has to do more with their skills to express their voice and networking rather than having high stakes.

This is very true.

And it is also true that Hive does a better job at decentralisation than other self-proclaimed decentralised initiatives. However as you state it is still a market and this brings with it all the benefits or non-benefits of the haves and have-nots, just like in class society.

Let me present a scenario, say Mr Trump decides Hive is his new home (I'm not for or against him by the way) and brings with him 20 friends and they all together end up buying a significantly larger stake than any present whale..

They also set up 20 new witnesses, and 5,000 people come along to support him and also vote for his witnesses.

What then happens to the Hive community?

I realise this is a little outrageous a scenario but considering that even a similar scenario on a lesser scale can have a dramatic effect on the Hive eco-system... What then?

I support Hive for the moment, I'm grateful it exists. But I'm also curious if there are fail-safes against 'takeovers' like this so Hive can retain its decentralised identity as a free speech platform.