In the same vein: Could we perhaps have the titled changed to something more descriptive? "The senatorial governance of Bitcoin: making (de)centralized money" better describes that this is about the governing process of the protocol development rather than mining.
Yes, true, and as the paper points out they are related. But the mining centralisation story is basically "water is wet" in 2020 for people interested in this. And as a many commenters here show, the mining centralisation problem is being thought about in technological ways ($BUZZWORD)...
The paper seems to focus more about the political/organisational problem, which to me seem more inherent and harder to solve.
Exactly. Bitcoin governance can still be called decentralized but there are still certain degrees of centralized control in decentralized systems (just look at the Internet). The political/organizational problem is hard to solve because humans have to coordinate to make decisions and often this is done from (centralized) points of authority (Lead Developers, Mining pools, Bitcoin wallets/exchanges). This is not a direct democracy but a represantative one because not everyone in the network is equal: 1) Core developers elect the Lead Developer to make decisions on protocol rule upgrades, 2) miners increase the likelihood of coin rewards by using mining pools and in the process elect mining pool operators to make voting decisions on their behalf, and 3) users use Bitcoin wallets to take on technical procedures associated with accessing bitcoins and in the process elect them to make lobbying decisions on their behalf (instead of running their own Bitcoin node). This creates a type of decentralised structure with centralised pieces. "The cost for collective action is [some form of] hierachy" (481).
This is exactly why decentralized currency is no better than regular currency. Bitcoin is centralized in the hands of a few shady, anonymous exchange owners funding the development.
At least in a capitalist democracy we get to elect the criminals who rob us blind.
"...replicating a structure (through organizational or version forking) does not completely address the hierarchy of the structure itself. While it certainly gives others a voice and accounts for fragmentation in the community, power is not flattened among all participants. Quite clearly, senatorial governance is not a direct democracy but a representative one where certain actors (Lead Developers, mining pool operators, software companies) are raised into positions of power by grouping individuals (programmers, miners, users) through their obligatory passage points. This is not necessarily a negative revelation for algorithmic decentralization via (proof-of-work) blockchains but it is important not to assume all stakeholders of their protocols are made equal. The cost of collective action is hierarchy" (481)
The two are not unrelated. If a protocol change creates a forked chain then acceptance of that protocol change is determined by mining the forked chain.
Not really. Although some forks are specifically programmed to require a miner vote, that's not the default case, and isn't how bitcoin cash, sv, or the etherum upgrades have worked. It's not very common these days.