I’ve been procrastinating on replying because of this, but first let’s talk about the 600-lb gorilla here (and this goes for all top Validators who oppose this idea) namely the potential inherent bias here with regards to you currently being a top 10 Validator right now.
More than likely I’m sure you realize that the net impact of sudden and mass diversification of the network could possibly mean far less bonded Atoms delegated your way as it gets spread out further downwards amongst more of the network.
You’re not actually providing any supporting evidence here… And most of this is theory and assumptions which don’t hold their weight here.
I mean the Game of Stakes example alone of nefarious Sybil players successfully being caught by 2 separate Validator in the community and then eventually getting forked out shows that the decentralized community can catch, come to agreement upon and then fork nefarious Validators.
Also the recent failed network upgrade has shown that the community can remain decentralized yet come to consensus on difficult decisions.
But yes, let’s pretend that there were Sybil Validators who went as far as to spread out their bond across Validator nodes/names/accounts… First off they would be operating with incredible risk, since this community has already shown that it can hunt down and catch said nefarious participants. Second they’d need to publicly state as such that they are managing ‘Validator A’, ‘Validator B’, ‘Validator C’, etc to the public so those in the public, who were wishing to get extra rewards through fake diversification but wanted to stick with just their Validator services, could delegate to their specific Sybil Validators. Third, the Delegators would be delegating to those Sybil Validators with incredible risk of being forked out by the community. And as stated above, there’s already a precedent set that this community doesn’t like rule breakers and will act appropriately.
And your cartel formation theories are just that, theories without evidence and frankly rely on the belief that the community is utterly helpless against such things. But even here though, the result of these cartels would likely be more diversification of stake amongst relatively more Validators versus the current scenario whereby there is no reason to diversify and hence you have fewer and larger Validators.
Lastly, AiB and ICF absolutely deserve these extra rewards for their diversification as much as anyone else. And frankly the way to combat huge holders earning extra rewards by diversifying their stake would be to diversify yourself to earn extra rewards yourself as well.