[cafeoh]

Interesting take on decentralized technologies. It feels to me like attacking (or defending) decentralized technologies in general is a bit abstract though. Just taking Bitcoin for example, where would you see this concept of racing to the bottom and trading away your values (outside of the shortcomings of the technology itself). Since it's a platform for holding and trading assets, I don't think there is the competitive aspect that would drive any of those behaviors, but maybe your article is focused on competitive scenarios more than anything else.

But even when there is a notion of competition you say that to avoid the traps left around by an imperfect (perhaps unavoidably) system of incentives, coordination is necessary, questioning the need for a decentralized system in the first place. But is that really so bad/superfluous? What if the coordination necessary to make a decentralized system work led more easily to a desirable and elastic result than something crafted by hand. Again, maybe it's too abstract, but I picture a decentralized governance system where members would have to coordinate to achieve a proper equilibrium. For example the biggest hurdle to fighting lobbyism effectively isn't coordination from competing interests, it's the lack of resources. Wouldn't a decentralized system negate the power of money, networking, services, preferential treatment (and even blackmail) even if it still ended up causing/requiring coordination?