Either you're trolling again, Carlton, or your bias is now so strong that you're selectively quoting out of context without even realising it. Stop jumping down someone's throat over your own failure at reading comprehension. Let's try that quote you replied to again without the twisted bias on your part:
But keep being the mindless, rabid attack dog that you are, Carlton, frenzied at the slightest misunderstanding. It continues to do nothing for your credibility.
Just like the rest of your ilk, you're still obsessed with individuals (mostly me) and personalities, incapable of arguing straightly or honestly about technical points.
You were
warned that you were now on my shitlist and that you would now be singularised for the brunt of my wrath because you insist on constantly being a pernicious dick. I'm afraid you've brought this on yourself. People were trying to discuss technical points before you stormed in to go for the throat.
That little exchange between d5000 and Boussac was not clear at all. I provided clarity.
You jumping to the wrong conclusion isn't clarity. It might look a bit clearer if bias wasn't clouding your vision.
Is there something wrong with the content of what I said? There is not, which is why, ironically, you can only attack my character. Who's the real troll
You insulted someone because you misunderstood something. You literally just attacked d5000's character and intelligence for no reason. So yes, there's something wrong with the content of what you said. There's evident justification for attacking your character. You are the troll.
Back to the topic:
If we find it too centralized, we can use another network based on another protocol, such as Tumblebit, which also provides payment hubs and payment channels.
That is true, but there is a possible drawback: It wouldn't help adoption if users must choose between different payment methods, all with different potential security models. The on-chain mechanism is still fairly easy to understand, LN adds a lot of complexity - which can be hidden, obviously, but the users must understand the underlying ideas at least a bit to be able to calculate risks. The more methods that are competing, the higher the barrier to enter the system for new users.
If we find LN to centralized, then we could change to another service provider. At least in theory. First of there need to be other services we could use and secondly they should be on more or less on the same level. If there are alternatives but they are not sophisticated enough, then they are no help.
We can often see that we end up with two or three market leaders. For credit cards it Visa, MasterCard and American Express. How about smartphone OS? We only use Apple or Android.
I don't see more then three big 2nd layer solutions. What if they all centralize? Once they are established it'll be even hard for a good product to enter the market. Why? I think it will be the network effect. If you have all the users they will be unhappy but still stay with you. Look at Facebook. There are alternatives, but nobody uses them. Why? Because all my friends are at FB.
If all my merchants and friends use LN then i will not switch to an alternative where i can not pay them, because they all just use LN.
And yes, this might cause just a little drawback in Bitcoin adoption. If people have to choose it's always a tiny bit harder then only having one option and deciding to join. But right now we have a whole bunch of Wallets to chose from and it is not stopping people from using Bitcoin. Also i don't think people will chose because of the technical underlining or security. They will chose depending on what they friends use, the costs and maybe some convenient features, which tend to be less safe. They won't care about centralization.
One would hope that the way LN is implemented would mean that it's not an either/or style choice. It should just be another part of Bitcoin. An option to open a channel, send your transactions back and forth without any delays, and then settle when you're done. It's also best to not think of LN as a "service provider" as such. There may well be service providers that utilise LN and those services would obviously be fairly centralised, but LN itself is closer to a protocol and should hopefully remain as neutral and impartial as Bitcoin's existing protocol. But we need to be careful how it's implemented to ensure that happens.