https://vitalik.eth.limo/general/2024/05/29/l2culture.html"Layer 2s as cultural extensions of Ethereum
2024 May 29
Special thanks for Abdelhamid Bakhta and Paul Dylan-Ennis for feedback and discussion.
In my recent post on the differences between layer 1 and layer 2 scaling, I ended up roughly coming to the conclusion that the most important differences between the two approaches are not technical but organizational (using the word in a similar sense to the field of "industrial organization"): it's not about what can get built, but what will get built, because of how the lines between different parts of the ecosystem are drawn and how that affects people's incentives and ability to act. In particular, a layer-2-centric ecosystem is inherently much more pluralistic, and more naturally leads to a greater diversity of different approaches to scaling, virtual machine design, and other technological features.
A key point I made in the previous post is:
Because Ethereum is a layer-2-centric ecosystem, you are free to go independently build a sub-ecosystem that is yours with your unique features, and is at the same time a part of a greater Ethereum."
