The Barry Silbert segwit2x agreement with >80% miner support.

[Swimmer63]

gmaxwell's reply to that article:

Gregory Maxwell

Blockstream does not have any patents, patent applications, provisional patent applications, or anything similar, related to segwit. As is the case for other major protocol features, the Bitcoin developers worked carefully to not create patent complications. Segwit was a large-scale collaboration across the community, which included people who work for Blockstream among its many contributors.

Moreover, because the public disclosure of segwit was more than a year ago, we could not apply for patents now.

In the prior thread where this absurdity was alleged on Reddit I debunked it forcefully. Considering that Rick directly repeated the tortured misinterpretation of our patent pledge from that thread (a pledge which took an approach that was lauded by multiple online groups), I find it hard to believe that he missed these corrections, doubly so in that he provides an incomplete response to them as though he were anticipating a reply, when really he’d already seen the rebuttal and should have known that there was nothing to these claims.

As an executive of Blockstream and one of the contributors to segwit, my straightforward public responses 1) that we do not, have not, will not, and can not apply for patents on segwit, 2) that if had we done so we would have been ethically obligated to disclose it, and 3) that even if we had done so our pledge would have made it available to everyone not engaging in patent aggression (just as the plain language of our pledge states): If others depended upon these responses, it would create a reliance which would preclude enforcement by Blockstream or our successors in interest even if the statements were somehow all untrue–or so the lawyers tell me.

In short, Rick Falkvinge’s allegations are entirely without merit and are supported by nothing more than pure speculation which had already been debunked.

Politicians say that sort of thing all the time. At a later date they get caught, makes excuses, lie, etc. When there is a conflict of interest, individual credibility are shot. Beside, we all know what politicians' pledges are like. Make loads of them to win an election and do something else when in power. Greg, is basically behaving like a politician. A decentralise Bitcoin does not need centralise organisation such as Blockstream and their partners getting involved in development. One must ask, what do these companies want in return?

The article "Blockstream having patents in Segwit makes all the weird pieces of the last three years fall perfectly into place" may be an editorial and without merit.  But I would give Mr. Maxwell's rebuttal the same one star review.  He may be an "executive" of Blockstream (which given his Core duties is a conflict of interest), but that does not mean he knows whether patents have been applied for or not.  His response boils down to "trust me."  
And you see, it's that very loose element of the human condition and lack there of, that inspired Satoshi to invent bitcoin.
So, no.  I at least won't trust any of you.  History has shown that to be bad for my financial health.

[jbreher]

... the hashpower heavy miners who think they know better or are smarter than Core.

Perhaps they are smarter than Core. At least in any dimension that has real-world impact. For they did not abdicate their (hash)power over the protocol, whereas pretty much the rest of us did. Pretty smart, in retrospect.

[jbreher]

yet even you seem to be playing into the misleading factors such as seeming to blame bitcoin's current design for transaction times and fees..

Misleading factors!? Transaction times and fees are directly attributable to Bitcoin's current design.

SegWit should help by making blocks "lighter" and that should give us some breathing room for a bit. Making blocks bigger is just a dumb brute force way of approaching the problem,

Yet SegWit's approach to making blocks lighter is by making blocks bigger. Then 'lying' about what size they actually are.

[alevlaslo]

Your language preference/knowledge has nothing to do with you posting that stupid comment about a coin that it would never apply to. Tell me what language you speak and, in that language, I'll tell you how DASH wallets aren't on that website, haven't been on that website, and will probably never be on that website.

The theme of dash has the next post after my just about the segwit. I am a white magician maybe..

[hv_]

Maybe we could all then bypass the BSlicense, because all witness of using it are pruned.

 

[classicsucks]

https://falkvinge.net/2017/05/01/blockstream-patents-segwit-makes-pieces-fall-place/

Well if we're quoting Falkvinge on Segwit, we may as well reference his better work, such as his synopsis of Satoshi Roundtable:
http://falkvinge.net/2017/01/26/impressions-satoshi-roundtable-iii/


In a speaking slot of mine, I stood up and made the observation that we (people in the room) are acting like a Toyota boardroom who are trying to make a decision that every family should buy the latest Toyota model. “It doesn’t work like that”, I said. “We’re not the Soviet Politburo commanding a planned economy. The reality of the situation is that we’ve made the market an offer, and the market is rejecting our offer.” I made the point that thinking the market should behave differently, no matter how good your reasons, is not going to make the market behave differently in the slightest. The Toyota boardroom doesn’t get to decide what car a family should buy, and the present company does not get to decide what code miners run on their own machines. The world isn’t fair, but instead of complaining about it, play the cards you’ve got on your hand. Give your client what they want and you both benefit.

I think that quote nails this whole year-long agonizing about Segwit perfectly, and in hindsight will be the Bitcoin history books.

[The One]

https://falkvinge.net/2017/05/01/blockstream-patents-segwit-makes-pieces-fall-place/

Well if we're quoting Falkvinge on Segwit, we may as well reference his better work, such as his synopsis of Satoshi Roundtable:
http://falkvinge.net/2017/01/26/impressions-satoshi-roundtable-iii/


In a speaking slot of mine, I stood up and made the observation that we (people in the room) are acting like a Toyota boardroom who are trying to make a decision that every family should buy the latest Toyota model. “It doesn’t work like that”, I said. “We’re not the Soviet Politburo commanding a planned economy. The reality of the situation is that we’ve made the market an offer, and the market is rejecting our offer.” I made the point that thinking the market should behave differently, no matter how good your reasons, is not going to make the market behave differently in the slightest. The Toyota boardroom doesn’t get to decide what car a family should buy, and the present company does not get to decide what code miners run on their own machines. The world isn’t fair, but instead of complaining about it, play the cards you’ve got on your hand. Give your client what they want and you both benefit.

I think that quote nails this whole year-long agonizing about Segwit perfectly, and in hindsight will be the Bitcoin history books.

It is the same principle in basic economics that loony lefty socialists scums don't understand. There are two sides, consumer and business. Business job is to produce what they think the consumer want to buy; consumer are the final arbitrator of goods and services.

The arrogant of Core developers pushing segwit so hard in the face of severe opposition, shows that they think they own bitcoin. Segwit should never be implemented. Compromising doesn't work.

[The One]

https://falkvinge.net/2017/05/01/blockstream-patents-segwit-makes-pieces-fall-place/

Well if we're quoting Falkvinge on Segwit, we may as well reference his better work, such as his synopsis of Satoshi Roundtable:
http://falkvinge.net/2017/01/26/impressions-satoshi-roundtable-iii/


In a speaking slot of mine, I stood up and made the observation that we (people in the room) are acting like a Toyota boardroom who are trying to make a decision that every family should buy the latest Toyota model. “It doesn’t work like that”, I said. “We’re not the Soviet Politburo commanding a planned economy. The reality of the situation is that we’ve made the market an offer, and the market is rejecting our offer.” I made the point that thinking the market should behave differently, no matter how good your reasons, is not going to make the market behave differently in the slightest. The Toyota boardroom doesn’t get to decide what car a family should buy, and the present company does not get to decide what code miners run on their own machines. The world isn’t fair, but instead of complaining about it, play the cards you’ve got on your hand. Give your client what they want and you both benefit.

I think that quote nails this whole year-long agonizing about Segwit perfectly, and in hindsight will be the Bitcoin history books.

The third Satoshi Roundtable has just concluded in Cancún, Mexico. The Roundtable is a private gathering of 100 movers and shakers within the bitcoin industry, with no media present, and it’s held under Chatham House rules – meaning everybody can use the information shared at the meeting, but never disclose who said what or their affiliation.

Same as The Bilderberg Group. Secrecy can not be permitted in decentralised environment.

[ComputerGenie]

...The theme of dash has the next post after my just about the segwit. I am a white magician maybe..

I'm not sure what that was supposed to mean, but I guess you still are not getting that you went to the DASH thread and said that you wouldn't download DASH unless it came from bitcoin.org. 

[JayJuanGee]

I think that you are suggesting that a lot of these variables are much beyond the ability of folks to know because there is game theory and emotions and attempting to play whatever leverage might be available in order to persuade or cajole self interests, yet even you seem to be playing into the misleading factors such as seeming to blame bitcoin's current design for transaction times and fees.... One thing is having a high volume of useage that is going to bring more contentiousness and even more technical difficulties.  Other coins do not really have that, and even ethereum seems to have more limited liquidation avenues.  

Correct. I am indeed suggesting that. Bitcoin is now big enough that there are a wide variety of players in the arena each with their own agenda and various motivations and interests. I wish we could know the entire picture but I don't think people like me or you will. There was definite transaction spam on the network which has recently miraculously disappeared. I wonder who it was that did it! I guess you are right in the sense that my statement could be construed as me playing into the false idea that bitcoin's inherent design is responsible for the high fees and transaction spam. It is clearly not from a certain perspective. Anyone on the network can spam it with transactions and the network has no mechanism of saying which is a legit transaction and which is not. I for one did not mind the high fees so much as the ridiculously long confirmation times. At the moment I don't personally see or use Bitcoin as a high volume cheap to transact payment system. In the future though there may come a time when the legitimate transaction volume will be so great that it will put a serious strain on the network like the spam attack did. It is better to prepare and upgrade the network now.

You and I are not very far apart in our perspective, so it is very likely that we would get along pretty well, even if we were arguing while drinking beers.... hahahaha

I might call you a fucker, and you dont take it personally, and come back with some similar retort.. 

I was all with you in the paragraph and cheering for you, until we got to the bolded part above. 

It's like you have the impression that the core team are a bunch of lazy slugs.  I just think that your premise is not correct. Even if as laypeople, we have some difficulties figuring out who is performing the spam attack, I think that the sudden discontinuance of the spam attack shows that there is a certain level of cost that is involved in attempting to keep up that appearance.. maybe even risk, too?

An underlying suggestion of yours seems to be that either bitcoin is in a kind of emergency broken status or it is on the precipice of such broken status due to lack of proper preparations to address issues, such as the spam attack.  I really don't think that a supposedly simplistic upgrade from 1mb limit to 2mb limit is going to be sufficient to address the matter - and there is a likely hidden agenda anyhow. These fuckjobs that are attacking the network are not really benevolently attempting to help fix bitcoin because they believe a 2mb limit is helpful, instead they merely want bitcoin to become more moldable (in other words changing governance - which would likely cause bitcoin to become a tool of the rich, the bankers and the governments to make bitcoin less of a disruptive threat to status quo institutions).  So, even if they got their 2mb upgrade they would likely ask for more .. unless the 2mb is somehow coupled with a kind of change in governance precedence that allows any fucktwad whiner to whine away until being able to accomplish a change - and that is seeming to be what they want - even if they don't proclaim to be seeking such... take Roger Ver for example.. he proclaims to have good intentions, but when you hear him talk, his is a bag of emotions that makes little sense, and a lot of folks in that group are parroting similar kinds of ideas and perspectives -even if they proclaim that they came up with the ideas on their own.

Perhaps whomever performed the spam attack was trying to teach the users a lesson about thinking ahead in the hope that users complaining would spur the core devs to deal with the issue.

Sure, a possible benevolent and good faith motive.

The scalability problem has been a known issue for a really long time now (super long in this fast moving industry).

It has been framed as a problem that likely does not exist at any kind of level that is even close to how it is framed.  It is largely a made up issue in order to change bitcoin's governance and attempt to undermine the processes followed by core because some of the folks do not like some core members and attackers are frequently emotional about this whole desire to peronsonalize the situation and to proclaim that core is biased and blah blah blah.

Whether the core devs have been lackadaisical about it is a matter up for debate. I can understand the pressure on their shoulders though. They can't make huge mistakes because the potential damage could be vast.

They have not been making mistakes on any technical level.. they have very solid code.. and I think that it is a good idea for them to stick to their guns on various matters pertaining to the requirements of having to put together large and overwhelming consensus in order to make major changes to the protocol.. and so if there are efforts to achieve changes with smaller levels of consensus, then surely that would be problematic.. and I am glad that they seem to be mostly sticking to their guns on a lot of that.

SegWit should help by making blocks "lighter" and that should give us some breathing room for a bit.

That is assuming that seg wit goes through and the various gamesmanship does not undermine segwit going through and locking in.

Making blocks bigger is just a dumb brute force way of approaching the problem, and yep you are right someone could spam the network even with 2 MB , 4 MB , 8 MB ,etc blocks.

I think so.

It would be very neat if we could come up with a technology that will allow the nodes to filter out spam transaction and share some sort of distributed blacklist. This is but an idea and I'm sure I'm not the first to suggest this nor am I an advanced coder to be able to put this out myself.

Yeah.  Neither of us seems to be too technical, so we are kind of blind regarding some of this, yet I have some faith that there are certain and ongoing efforts and brainstorming about ways to address spamming issues - since it has been an ongoing problem in bitcoin throughout its history.. and in that regard, we know that fees is one way to address the matter, and at the same time, a certain amount of spam is likely to be inevitable because there are trade offs in battling spam too much and bringing extra costs and possibly weeding out legitimate uses.. 

Yep you're right there is a ton of misinformation and mind games being played. For a sincere and genuine user who doesn't have a favorite horse in the race it can be mind numbing to sort through all the rhetoric.

Hang in there my friend and let's stay optimistic.

It seems that each of us is engaged in these kinds forums and conversations because bitcoin is a constant learning situation and we are attempting to engage and learn; however, when I look at your profile, I see that you have known about bitcoin for more than twice as long as me...       You must be rich... 

Don't you like it when folks assume you are rich if you been in bitcoin longer than them?

[JayJuanGee]

as well is that ^

So why on earth is GMAX's brain bound to legal shit?

Should he not better be providing open source solutions for REAL BITCOINERS in a competitive open and fair / supporting way ?

When does this childish stuff finally ends?  We need a way of choosing parts & modules of competing teams- not a full singleton solution provider that also needs to care about legal, economics , game theory ... ?

I doubt that any prudent approach could not avoid some legal consultations because there is risks in attempting to patent and there are risks in attempting to leave open source.  It is kind of a bunch of bullshit that bitcoin could become truly disruptive and a tool of the people, but then the patent system may allow for various attempts of private individuals to claim property rights over aspects of bitcoin's various technological innovations - by claiming that they did it first and that bitcoin cannot do it... .. and in such a case, the question might be who do they sue to attempt to get the innovation removed from bitcoin?

[JayJuanGee]

yet even you seem to be playing into the misleading factors such as seeming to blame bitcoin's current design for transaction times and fees..

Misleading factors!? Transaction times and fees are directly attributable to Bitcoin's current design.

[http://i0.kym-cdn.com/entries/icons/facebook/000/018/489/nick-young-confused-face-300x256_nqlyaa.jpg[/img]

You and I differ in our perspective regarding various causualities, and I doubt that there is any need to go into a repeated dialogue.

I am wondering if you and I could drink beer over these kinds of differing perspectives?  I am kind of inclined to think that each of us would be frustrated in such a conversation, so we would not really be able to get through our first beer, right?  In that regard, it seems that we are just talking past each other, no?

[Variogam]

Stop string posting JayJuanGee, its against the forum rules, and you doing it so often here. Use HR (horizontal rule) to separate replies to different people in one of your post only.

[allinvain]

https://falkvinge.net/2017/05/01/blockstream-patents-segwit-makes-pieces-fall-place/

Well if we're quoting Falkvinge on Segwit, we may as well reference his better work, such as his synopsis of Satoshi Roundtable:
http://falkvinge.net/2017/01/26/impressions-satoshi-roundtable-iii/


In a speaking slot of mine, I stood up and made the observation that we (people in the room) are acting like a Toyota boardroom who are trying to make a decision that every family should buy the latest Toyota model. “It doesn’t work like that”, I said. “We’re not the Soviet Politburo commanding a planned economy. The reality of the situation is that we’ve made the market an offer, and the market is rejecting our offer.” I made the point that thinking the market should behave differently, no matter how good your reasons, is not going to make the market behave differently in the slightest. The Toyota boardroom doesn’t get to decide what car a family should buy, and the present company does not get to decide what code miners run on their own machines. The world isn’t fair, but instead of complaining about it, play the cards you’ve got on your hand. Give your client what they want and you both benefit.

I think that quote nails this whole year-long agonizing about Segwit perfectly, and in hindsight will be the Bitcoin history books.

The third Satoshi Roundtable has just concluded in Cancún, Mexico. The Roundtable is a private gathering of 100 movers and shakers within the bitcoin industry, with no media present, and it’s held under Chatham House rules – meaning everybody can use the information shared at the meeting, but never disclose who said what or their affiliation.

Same as The Bilderberg Group. Secrecy can not be permitted in decentralised environment.

This right here bothers me severely! Why in the hell are we replicating the same power structures that we purportedly seek to destroy. *Sigh*

[jbreher]

I am wondering if you and I could drink beer over these kinds of differing perspectives?  I am kind of inclined to think that each of us would be frustrated in such a conversation, so we would not really be able to get through our first beer, right? 

Aww gee, I was just assuming that we'd move on to other topics by the second round.

[ComputerGenie]

Stop string posting JayJuanGee, its against the forum rules, and you doing it so often here. Use HR (horizontal rule) to separate replies to different people in one of your post only.

Well, aren't you a useless douche  
@JayJuanGee feel free to post as usefully as you do and not create 1 post with multiple non-linked conversations in it like this one.@allinvain The more things change is the more they stay the same.

[JayJuanGee]

I am wondering if you and I could drink beer over these kinds of differing perspectives?  I am kind of inclined to think that each of us would be frustrated in such a conversation, so we would not really be able to get through our first beer, right?  

Aww gee, I was just assuming that we'd move on to other topics by the second round.

That's fine, we could talk about the weather and maybe family matters in order to attempt some semblance of sanity.

On the other hand, you're such an obsessive nerd, so probably you would cajole me into playing poker with your Big Blocker specialty deck of 104 cards (plus jokers of course)..  

I can hear you now:  "Here JJG, how about a friendly game?"

Stop string posting JayJuanGee, its against the forum rules, and you doing it so often here. Use HR (horizontal rule) to separate replies to different people in one of your post only.

Well, aren't you a useless douche  
@JayJuanGee feel free to post as usefully as you do and not create 1 post with multiple non-linked conversations in it like this one.@allinvain The more things change is the more they stay the same.

Hahahahahaha...    

I had similar thoughts about who the fuck died and left Variogam in charge?




PS:   Thanks to -ck for unlocking this thread in order that we can attempt to stay on topic.   

[allinvain]

You and I are not very far apart in our perspective, so it is very likely that we would get along pretty well, even if we were arguing while drinking beers.... hahahaha

I might call you a fucker, and you dont take it personally, and come back with some similar retort..  

Definitely! Plus I like drinking beer too! Also I think I am a reasonable guy and I have no hidden agenda or axe to grind in this crypto currency space.

I was all with you in the paragraph and cheering for you, until we got to the bolded part above.  

It's like you have the impression that the core team are a bunch of lazy slugs.  I just think that your premise is not correct. Even if as laypeople, we have some difficulties figuring out who is performing the spam attack, I think that the sudden discontinuance of the spam attack shows that there is a certain level of cost that is involved in attempting to keep up that appearance.. maybe even risk, too?

I don't think they are lazy slugs. They very conservative because they kind of have to be. Being conservative and careful is good, but as long as you aren't so conservative that you stagnate. Like I said previously sometimes you have to be a bit bold. Even with the spam attack bitcoin worked, just not as its users liked. At the end of the day people will see bitcoin sort of as a utility. They expect it to work without any fuss or hassle.

An underlying suggestion of yours seems to be that either bitcoin is in a kind of emergency broken status or it is on the precipice of such broken status due to lack of proper preparations to address issues, such as the spam attack.  I really don't think that a supposedly simplistic upgrade from 1mb limit to 2mb limit is going to be sufficient to address the matter - and there is a likely hidden agenda anyhow. These fuckjobs that are attacking the network are not really benevolently attempting to help fix bitcoin because they believe a 2mb limit is helpful, instead they merely want bitcoin to become more moldable (in other words changing governance - which would likely cause bitcoin to become a tool of the rich, the bankers and the governments to make bitcoin less of a disruptive threat to status quo institutions).  So, even if they got their 2mb upgrade they would likely ask for more .. unless the 2mb is somehow coupled with a kind of change in governance precedence that allows any fucktwad whiner to whine away until being able to accomplish a change - and that is seeming to be what they want - even if they don't proclaim to be seeking such... take Roger Ver for example.. he proclaims to have good intentions, but when you hear him talk, his is a bag of emotions that makes little sense, and a lot of folks in that group are parroting similar kinds of ideas and perspectives -even if they proclaim that they came up with the ideas on their own.

I don't think it's broken. It has minor "flaws" that are there in any peer to peer network (relating to the transaction spam problem). I agree that simply increasing the blocksize is not a magical fix. What saddens me is that we knew about this issue long time ago. Core has 3 years if not more to address this issue. Bitcoin as it is suits the current user base perfectly fine and is technically sound, however we as a community have to come to some consensus as to what we want bitcoin to be. Do we want it to be "money by the people for the people" or a niche system for gold bug refugees and financially conservative nerds? If we (and I use that term in the democratic sense of a majority) want it to be used by as many people as possible then would it not stand to reason that network performance has to increase? If I was on the Core team the moment I saw btc price appreciate like crazy I would've put some smart people together and do some serious brainstorming to come up with technically sound ways of increasing transaction throughput. SegWit is an apparent piece of that solution yet look that it hasn't caught on as the Core team had hoped. SegWit is their baby and no doubt they Core team has some emotional ties to their ideas. They put out the idea and it was nearly rejected. What should they have done? Try again with something new?

I don't know much about Roger Ver, but I know for sure that money does not buy you wisdom nor intelligence. Wisdom is a quality that cannot be obtained at the crypto lottery. Ideally we should have both technically brilliant and wise people at the helm of the bitcoin titanic. That's the tragic part of anything we do as humans. Bitcoin could be the next best thing to sliced bread, but if has a hostile or negative culture/community with poor leadership figures it will all fall to fragmented pieces.

It has been framed as a problem that likely does not exist at any kind of level that is even close to how it is framed.  It is largely a made up issue in order to change bitcoin's governance and attempt to undermine the processes followed by core because some of the folks do not like some core members and attackers are frequently emotional about this whole desire to peronsonalize the situation and to proclaim that core is biased and blah blah blah.

So you think it was all overly exaggerated? Perhaps. Actually most likely yes. There is a lot of propaganda back and forth sadly. My head hurts from all of this.

That is assuming that seg wit goes through and the various gamesmanship does not undermine segwit going through and locking in.

It will go through - at least attempt to - no matter what on August 1'st due to UASF. Now the question is whether the UASF segwit chain will be viable. Jihan Wu and his ilk could easily attack the segwit chain by choosing to hard fork and mine a different chain. I think they said somewhere that it's precisely what they intend to do - combat BIP 148. Nuts!

It seems that each of us is engaged in these kinds forums and conversations because bitcoin is a constant learning situation and we are attempting to engage and learn; however, when I look at your profile, I see that you have known about bitcoin for more than twice as long as me...     You must be rich...  

Don't you like it when folks assume you are rich if you been in bitcoin longer than them?

Sadly I am not rich. My story is tragic and if you do some research you will find out why. I was into bitcoin almost from the very beginning. I am strong believer in the bitcoin dream but overall bitcoin has brought me a fair bit of sadness. But like your first love you never quite forget her nor completely erase her from your heart. Such is life and some of us just have bad luck and that's just the way it is. I prefer not to talk about it and just move on. Only small minds dwell on the past.

[allinvain]

@allinvain The more things change is the more they stay the same.

Too bad this forum has no way I can upvote your reply cause this deserves a big thumbs up!

"What has been will be again,
what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun"

On a different note and more on-topic it seems segwit2x support intention went down lol! Yar, there be rough seas ahead mateys!

[dinofelis]

Although I do agree with many people that this feature is "not Bitcoin" as some say, why the hate for it?

So there are 3 main complaints people make about lightning network and these are a combination of partly true, part misconception, and complete FUD

1. Purists believed the blockchain was good enough for all transactions and the proverbial "cup of coffee" purchases could be done on-chain simply through micro bitcoin transactions. It's clear now that if we had all of VISA's transactions worldwide, in its current form the blockchain would need to have 2GB sized blocks to sustain that volume of transactions. Current technology and even anything we can perceive in the immediate future makes that impossible with transmission of new blocks generated, propagated and stored in a distributed manner. The counterargument is we'll only slowly get up to that size; it won't happen overnight and we'll find a way between now and then to do it.

I think this is wrong already.  It is based upon the belief that bitcoin's decentralization (that is, the spread of the powers of decision in bitcoin over a lot of non-colluding entities) has something to do with the amount of copies that are kept around the world on different storage apparatus (Joe's node in his basement). 

It is indeed not feasible to spread 2 GB blocks every 10 minutes to EVERY JOE node in his basement, because there are many Joe that won't invest a few $1 000 in the necessary equipment.  As such, your statement is right.  But the fundamental mis-understanding here, is that Joe's copy of the block chain matters AT ALL in the decentralization of bitcoin's decisions.

Only 20 entities make all those decisions: the mining pools.   These entities are the sole entities being able to even MAKE a right block chain.  It only takes the chain of HEADERS to VERIFY that the chain of headers you have, is the "best block chain" and even to make a failed imitation of it would cost a fortune and would easily be detected.

So in reality:

1)only about 20 entities BUILD the sole block chain out there
2) every smart phone in the world can easily check that he has the right header chain downloaded, made by these 20 entities (can check the proof of work in that header chain).

Once you realize that, you also realize that the only entities that REALLY NEED to have this full chain with 2 GB blocks, are those 20 entities ; but of course, anyone willing to invest enough in it, can have that chain too - only, apart from big users like exchanges, THERE IS NO POINT in having this amount of data:
a) possessing it, and transmitting it, doesn't change ZILCH to the decision process in bitcoin (whether you have these data or not, doesn't alter the decisions that the sole authors of the block chain, the 20 entities, make)
b) you can verify for yourself that the sole true chain out there corresponds to the headers which ARE very small and independent of the block size
c) those needing it, are so much invested in bitcoin in any way, that for THEM there is no problem in having these data transmitted and stored quickly and smoothly.  (exchanges and mining pools DO NOT HAVE technical problems with such volumes, not more so than any serious data center has in serving such kinds of volumes which are small to other internet usage).

==>  there is strictly no technical problem for the involved entities to process so much data, even as of today, and all the others DON'T NEED IT and it doesn't serve any purpose of "decentralization"to have your own copy of the block chain - but if you WANT to you still can.  For reasons of privacy, or because you want to do chain analysis and try to break other people's privacy.

The "waste of storage resources" for those few entities serving the block chain (because they are also the sole entities MAKING the block chain, and taking all decisions on it) is ridiculously small as compared to the inherent waste of resources imposed by proof of work, wasted by those same entities.  In other words, given all the wasting that goes on in bitcoin, the "block chain size" issue is microscopic and irrelevant.
This whole debate is meaningless ; the blocks can have just any size, only a few copies need to be available to users and we're talking about amounts of data far inferior than most middle sized data centers are already handling with a smile.  There's nothing "decentralized" in working as a distributed proxy in your basement for the sole chain that is out there and on which you have, in any case, nothing to say.

3. LN is centralised instead of distributed and blockstream will will run it. Lightning nodes can be run by "someone" but that doesn't mean it will all be held by one entity. It is possible to run a node of your own though it is highly likely that several competing services will come out using the same protocol and people will use that in preference to running a complete full blockchain node and lightning node on top.

It is fairly obvious that if you run LN nodes for profit (and you have to, because otherwise it will be lossy with all the settlement fees), the economies of scale scale strongly with committed capital, making big hubs able to offer much more competitive LN channels to customers than small users.