Are Profits More Important Than Decentralization?

[pooya87]

One of the central tenets of cryptocurrency is the principle of decentralization. It seems, however, that more and more people are willing to trade the principle of decentralization for profits. Is it just me, or is the crypto culture shifting? Or are principles like decentralization that important to begin with?

for me i want decentralization in the coin that i am passionate about and planning to use. which is bitcoin. but at the same time, profit has a high priority too.

i think when people stop considering cryptocurrencies as an investment and a way to make a quick buck and start considering it as a currency then the decentralization becomes an important part.

[Crestington]

I'm not sure if you ever can have a truly decentralized Cryptocurrency because you need to be able to trust whoever managing the codebase

unless you, as stakeholders could vote on weather or not to change the codebase, and how.  Imagine the bitcoin blocksize debate happening over the course of a month or so as bitcoin holders voted either for or against the change the next time they logged into their wallets.  Simple.  Painless.

I'm not sure it would be any more painless when it comes to Bitcoin, I imagine you would still have people complaining about the voting and how it is unfair.

Sorry, I meant on blockchain voting (as a function within your wallet)(1 satoshi = 1 vote)

Anyone who owns bitcoin knows that you cannot argue with the blockchain (or honey badgers).  

Yes and that is what I was referring to because then people would complain because large Bitcoin holders can outvote them. I think this is a good idea though and could be refined a bit, I think this is the first time I've heard someone suggest a solution instead of a problem regarding the Block size debate.

[unusualfacts30]

One of the central tenets of cryptocurrency is the principle of decentralization. It seems, however, that more and more people are willing to trade the principle of decentralization for profits. Is it just me, or is the crypto culture shifting? Or are principles like decentralization that important to begin with?

Yes, I think lot of new investors come get attracted to crypto because of profit and there are some people who truly interested in value but until we remove these investors who are in it for profit I think it'll be very hard to focus on value.

We must've lost around 100,000 people because of scams and p&d schemes yet one would wonder why they still exist...people don't learn and greed is a bitch.

[tokeweed]

Are Profits More Important Than Decentralization?

Yes we need maney buy rice for famili.

[alt19]

Greedy people care more for profit than decentralization, and you can recognize them instantly because they complain or criticize your possession, be it dollars, BTC, gold, food, cars, cribs, etc.  

I'd add altcoins. I think no posessions here are being criticized more than altcoins.

I've posted recently "True Decentralization is in Diversity" where have described the way of true decentralization and have got no answers, no arguments. Thus I yet don't know whether people fully agree (Qui tacet consentit) or just ignore these ideas.

Unfortunately there is often a lack of real arguments here on Bitcointalk.

[Nxtblg]

and it's quite trendy around here to objectify money, and even easier to judge people if you have it.

Well...in the outside First World, it's quite trendy to objectify money and surprisingly easy to judge people through using it - i.e., using it as a standard of judgement. When you think about it, it's historically shocking to see how much of our charitable impulses are channelled through using the Almighty Dollar as a measuring stick.

If you have a taste for satire....

"All hail the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and its Gift to the World: the mighty Socio-Economic Scale! Through it, with it, in it: such is our charity."

"As a man with a cash-register heart, who see things only in dollars and cents, I can say that my heart absolutely bleeds when I see folks with neither dollars nor cents. How can anyone say that the poor are not victims?"

and so on...

[Nxtblg]

Canada still has food and resources to strip which is why they did not go into recession.  

Actually, Canadian bankers have a tradition of prudence. When times are better, this tradition shows indirectly through all those complaints about "stingy banks" from a lot of Canadians.

In the worst of the Great Depression, when American banks were falling like ninepins, no Canadian bank went under. Even though there was no such thing as a central bank in Canada until 1935, not a single Canadian bank failed in the 1930s.

At the time, this glaring lack of failure was chalked up to size: Canadian banks were big, spread all through Canada, diversified through the Canadians economy, etc.

Nowadays, of course, that same tradition of relative prudence is ascribed to "better regulation" - even through Canada's answer to the Glass-Steagall Act went void as of 1988.

So...us Canucks escaping "The Big One" provides a kind of Rorschach test of the times. Either that, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster has commanded us to give thanks and praise to Regulation...I think it's in the Gospel According to Max Weber.