I understand, but I keep seeing posts here saying it will complement bitcoin, even from non-affiliated members (*as far as I know, non-affiliated)
Considering the point made in my OP, I don't see how that would happen
In theory you can send and receive Bitcoins without ever seeing Ripple, but still through Ripple network. Since there is no proof of work to hash the record of the transactions, it is potentially much faster and cheaper to facilitate transfers.
Note that I say potentially, because I don't know the details. But I know enough to say that Ripple ledger is definitely not like Bitcoin block chain and transaction fees are strictly for preventing somebody spamming the network. Nobody gets the transaction fees, they just discourage you from sending zillions of messages through the network.
It is currently centralized indeed, in particular in the sense that one for-profit corporation has made public some of the source code, with the promise that all of it will become open source, once they polish the details. But network itself is P2P so is not centralized in technical sense.
Clearly, if you invested a lot in mining hardware, possibly with a view to profit, or break even, from transaction charges one day, you cannot like it, it or anything that comes close to it.
Anyway, Alternate cryptocurrencies forum is a better place to ask about these things.