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Comment by Buetol | Hacker News Reader

Or it's like all the other services we have, it evolves from decentralized to centralized: email, search, forums,...The case could be made even for governments. The only limit was technical, now you can control the cabs in all the cities from one place. The future is definitely more and more centralized, just look at the money distribution.

My guess is that we're having our geeky dreams without thinking what's the reality happening around us. It's very comfortable to be utopist when thinking of bitcoin, instead of seeing that it's still the same winner-takes-it-all scheme.

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This is just an example of technical change aligning itself with real world human want.

People will ALWAYS put convenience first. Even those that say they won’t, it’s typically an isolated action (like, email is harder when not using google apps, but it’s worth not being spied on. Walk in their house, Echos and smart devices everywhere).

The hope for Blockchain is we can now, finally, begin building true decentralized things without sacrificing this innate human want for convenience. It’s technology advancing towards multiple mutual goals (a technical one and a human one).

Lightning networks to handle scaling limitations are the first step on the slow re-centralization of bitcoin. Eventually an overwhelming majority mining will be controlled by a centralized/federated oligopoly.

Be prepared to rebel and re-re-decentralize in 20 years.

I think I’d probably agree with you. But Blockchain technology (the backbone of a decentralized movement) is the parent to bitcoin.

I’m speaking on Blockchain, not bitcoin.

Even viewing it more generically, the same scaling issues apply, and the same inevitable re-decentralization awaits it. Centralized systems trade robustness for efficiency. The drive to lower costs will always result in re-centralization.

The scaling problems aren't necessarily only a symptom of decentralization. Proof of stake scales much better than proof of work, for instance.

Your right, they can be at your secrity module cost.

I currently (as I understand the state of pos) see pos useful for other the other blochain ESC stuff and pow for a safe currency (BTC)

Personally I'm much more bullish on Bitcoin Cash. It's following the same path that got us to this point today, and they're not opposed to Layer 2. But they have a clear understanding that a currency is only as good as it's utility. If they can maintain that balance of decentralization, utility, and security, while picking up the pieces that Bitcoin Core dropped it's likely we'll see a flippening in the coming year.

But isn't Lightning and segwit supposed to make btc faster and cheaper?

It's a different kind of centralization, if you can call it that at all, since you don't have to trust your counterparty in a lightning network style payment channel

we can change the world. some people always don't see the vision or they don't believe in it. we should not count on them for society progression regardless if we fail or not. otherwise let's all make a big corp dystopia our dream and go sleep.

Or we could attempt to see the bigger picture (money distribution) and fix that instead, that was my point.

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