Actually, you might be being too nice in your assessment of anyone attempting to make definitive analysis regarding what a system like lightning network would be or would have been based on when it was first launched..
Maybe (if I understand you correctly). Generally I support this kind of analysis, and at least it could serve to find parameters to understand LN evolution and possible challenges
(Edited, here I left an incomplete sentence). But to be clear: the title "
Lightning Network: a second path towards centralisation of the Bitcoin economy", is at best a grotesque clickbait and/or overinterpretation of results. At worst, it may be simply trolling using a "scientific" language.
Personally, I am not against any kind of analysis that attempts to put matters into perspective and even to perhaps show historical developments as compared with current happenings, so surely we can likely appreciate that lightning network remains a ways from mature, yet I see no real reason not to be attempting to analyze what is going on without necessarily drawing inaccurate and misleading conclusions from nonrepresentative data.. such as the first year of lightning network.
Agree. What I would like to see, perhaps, is a real-time (or at least, let's say weekly) update on the centrality measures they established.
Bitcoin Visuals has some measures which may indicate relative centralization, too, or at least connectivity and thus resilience against attacks. For example, the "cut channels" indicator shows channels which cannot be closed safely without disconnecting nodes. The percentage of these channels
was rising until May 2021, but since then it is slowly decreasing. This may indicate that people were indeed connecting to few nodes making some routes "irreplaceable", but now alternative routes are opening, and thus connectivity is improving again.
Surely with the recent onboarding in lightning network - perhaps partly fueled by some of the El Salvador news (including realizing that apps like strike actually have utility) seems to bring more attention into creativity that could cause some functionalities and interfaces in the coming years that currently ONLY a few more insightful folks might imagine to be coming...
For sure. The current growth trend in LN seems to have been started before El Salvador's adoption, though -
it began to accelerate in March/April, maybe first due to the rising on-chain BTC fees, but then continuing after the May crash, possibly taking advantage of the low fees in this period. But El Salvador is surely a big test for the network, if they really manage to onboard people via Strike/Zap. So maybe at the end of the year we will have a first impression about how LN will look like in case of mass adoption.
it is instead a public hub and spoke model.. as people above are now admitting to but saying thats the natural effect.. even though less than 6 months ago they were arrogantly fighting that its an independent and private 'hop'/'route' network that will never centralise
If you mean me, I was never convinced that LN could be totally interconnected without at least smaller hubs (you can search my post history). The challenge is to reach a structure where the hubs don't get too big (with tens of thousands of channels each, a node may get realistic chances to launch attacks), but currently I see no danger here. But those wanting to bring forward LN have to care for that centralization not to happen, for example, periodically revising tutorials (which may have created some centralization according to the blog post linked above) and always pointing out several alternatives when talking to/writing content directed to beginners.