Yes, that happened, but in the long run it failed and Vitalik still reigns supreme over the original Ethereum, despite him breaking one of the central promises

Yes, that happened, but in the long run it failed and Vitalik still reigns supreme over the original Ethereum, despite him breaking one of the central promises of Ethereum in that scenario (the promise that "code is law"). Ethereum is better than the other complete scam coins, it's not a total scam. But it's not really permissionless and decentralized like Bitcoin.