**side note i'd love to see a link which back up your statement "Payment channels are crucial. Satoshi saw that"
Here is gmaxwell talking about it. I'm too lazy to dig into the mailing lists:
In my vision of lightning there isn't much in the way of hubs, but a mesh of users. If I wanted to build a hub I'd build a chaumanian cash bank. Payment channels were originally proposed by Bitcoin's creator, and the Bitcoin transaction format has specific affordances to support them (e.g. sequence numbers).
The seeds of achieving truly great capacity without compromising the differentiating values of Bitcoin, our removing our arguments for security without collusion in the long term were sewn in the very first versions of the software-- support for payment channels are just one example.
The reason for this is that if Bitcoin is secure and trustworthy, trustless decenteralized micropayment facilities can be built on top of it and extend Bitcoin's transaction security with arbritary speed or scale. But if the system is fragle and underminable by attackers (government or otherwise) then it won't be robust enough to underpin these things.
(and things like micropayment channels were't my invention, they were recommended by the system's creator-- thats part of why Bitcoin has smart contracts to begin with.)
so you agree that making second layer the primary scaling solution will require an overhaul on almost all bitcoin businesses that process bitcoin payments for whatever reason.
That's not clear. I'm not sure what implications LN would have for wallet/library/merchant/exchange developers. Given that it was coded into the original software (albeit with vulnerabilities), perhaps not all that much.
your answer to that is "tough shit", fair enough...
Well, businesses adapt. That's the nature of business--adapt or die. No reason to coddle outfits like Bitpay. Like Gavin, they may have helped out in bitcoin's infancy, but we shouldn't relegate bitcoin to their limited ideas and abilities. Their plan is "we don't need to scale; we can just add load to the system forever." That's unacceptable for anyone that values decentralization, let alone engineering/programming principles in general.
decentralization gives bitcoin value, but its not the only thing that give it value
Other things may give it value, but without decentralization it is completely worthless. There can be no value proposition if a few have the power to change the rules of the system, censor transactions, etc.
clearly altcoins are nowhere near as decentralized as bitcoin yet they command a market price none the less.
Sure, and we can start a market for bags of shit if anyone's willing to buy.
Hype cycles are not particular to bitcoin, so don't be surprised when some alts get hyped. A few of them may even gain some traction--give it some years. Recall the 2011 "bubble" and the long painful period that followed. Everything goes through cycles, and after the hype cycle comes, well, pain. And silence. If investors in alts like ETH are lucky, it will emerge from such a phase into another hype cycle...and eventually have the opportunity at growing pains like bitcoin is experiencing. All in time.
i'm not sold on the idea that every single user needs to run a full node for bitcoin to be considered decentralized.
Every user need not run a node. I think the best security tradeoff we can make re increased throughput is a system of both fully and partially validating nodes (the latter which contribute strictly within their limitations)...with emphasis on increased security for SPV nodes. Fraud proofs that Segwit will enable will contribute to that.
If we don't leave any consideration for the
ability to run a node....then who have we to blame when we're left trusting the network to only a few entities? Bitcoin was meant to dethrone the central bankers, not annoint new ones.
