[godelski]

Can we stop pretending that email is a great example of decentralized networks? Modern email is extremely centralized with most people on either Gmail, Apple, or Outlook. No one rolls their own server.

Email on the other hand is a great example of how decentralized things become centralized over time due to the network effect. There's even a weak network effect with email and it still happened.

[colordrops]

This is the same flawed logic that claims that Bitcoin is really centralized. You are looking at the wrong properties when you call email centralized. With email, as with Bitcoin, you can participate in the network and roll your own if you so wish, and no one can prevent you from transacting. That doesn't mean most should roll their own, but the fact that it's possible is a vast and fundamental difference. I really don't think most people understand what decentralized means. We are talking about the protocol, not the implemented topology.

Same as democracy in the US. Even if for the most part policy is set by centralized interests, just having the populace believe that it's a democracy and they have the agency to change things makes the system function in a fundamentally different way. The ruling class can't just cart blanche do whatever they want like in China, even if they are the ones holding most of the levers.

[godelski]

> This is the same flawed logic that claims that Bitcoin is really centralized.

Except it isn't because centralization-decentralization is not a binary discrete variable but a continuous one. There's a reason the trilemma exists and you score on each axis. No coin is at any extreme.