No doubt POS is centralized

[Kavelj22]

The POW system is more efficient and decentralized than the POS. But there is another important point that the Ethereum developer team cannot overlook, which is the energy consumed in the POW far exceeds the POS.

The world's policies tend to reduce energy consumption in general as a necessary step as long as the exploitation of clean energies is not currently sufficient to meet the planet's energy needs. Therefore, many legislations will aim to reduce the current consumption.

We had heard on more than one occasion and in different parts of the world about the possibility of blocking Bitcoin mining activities for the same reasons, especially that Bitcoin is completely decentralized, meaning that the mining system can not be replaced by it except through the agreement of the miners themselves, which is not completely applicable in the example of Ethereum since there is A team of developers is working on updates and changes easier and faster.

[evichi]

Proof of stake is centralized. Being Centralized means that a single point does all of the work involved in any given action. This point is also a single point of failure. On the other hand, decentralization is the opposite, that is, there are many points that divide all the work and no single point of failure. This means that having your crypto asset  in a PoW coin is different from having your cypto asset on PoS coin. In my opinion, I don't consider PoS superior to PoW because of the security issues of centralization as regards PoS. See more on the pros and cons (https://www.coindesk.com/learn/proof-of-work-vs-proof-of-stake-what-is-the-difference/).

[Abiky]

PoS is based on the amount you hold. If we simply evaluate this, I think we are safe to say it's a method to make rich people more rich as they will have more power with their holdings. This makes the system more centralized. People with heavy investment can easily have the control of the chain.

Your discussion would better fit in altcoin discussion since it's all about altcoin discussion here.

Exactly. PoS makes crypto no different than today's ordinary banking system. Effectively, the rich become richer, while the poor, poorer. Such unequal system goes against what crypto/Blockchain tech was created in the first place. With PoS, big exchanges will be able to control the Blockchain with customers' funds. It's like giving the power back to evil corporations subject to governments' rules. It's this reason why Bitcoin is and will always be a PoW cryptocurrency.

Critics may point PoW's energy consumption, but the fact is that no other consensus algorithm matches its level of decentralization and censorship-resistance. With PoW, anyone can mine coins using specialized hardware (either ASICs, FPGAs, or GPUs) spending time and energy in the process. This makes it more accessible than PoS (if I'm not mistaken). Greater accessibility = greater decentralization, right? I feel sorry for ETH and other PoS coins for sacrificing decentralization in favor of high performance and cost-efficiency. They will be taken down by governments easily due to their high concentration of power among a few players. At least, Bitcoin won't be going anywhere. As long as decentralization wins, nothing else matters. Just my thoughts

[Stella Mese]

POS does look more like centralized. that's why I think a lot of people will switch from ETH to ETC. if you want to choose coins that have a POS system then I prefer BNB. but ETH is also good. but would not be a priority for me.
for some reason I prefer the POW system. because in POS we can only stake. and the beneficiaries are the largest holders.

[budi691]

this can happen to any network as long as they have the money to invest then maybe they can control the price movement. When large volumes are in the hands of a few big players in the market, it will be more centralized. This can result in progressive markets based on manipulation and real movement being disrupted, and ultimately the more decentralized and controlled the more profit they get.

[DapanasFruit]

The hype generated by the Merge has already leaped out of the window and we are facing another threat from the smiling bears. Personally am a little bit disappointed but as what experts are pointing the Merge and its impact have already been factored in with the price of Eth many days ago. Let's see how this fear that the shift of PoS  is actually making Ethereum more centralized can be affecting its direction and its future. The pressure for Ethereum to go less energy intensive has been the guiding force for this shift for sure...and now they can be pressuring Bitcoin as well.

[Jeger.Kiting]

You have to understand the fact that prices depend on supply and demand. It should be added that the coin base and many more large pools can be controlled with their system. Although if you look at it in its entirety, it could still be a good update regardless of whether it's centralized or not, as the purpose of the merge is pretty self-explanatory and we'll probably see the effect in the coming months.

[Gayong88]

Sometimes this is just a hypothesis, however, which is justified given the facts. It is not clear how else the fork was initiated other than the pre-existing conditions in the network. I think this could change drastically in the future when Proof-of-Stake (PoS) enters the picture and further decentralizes blockchain control. However, right now and with these numbers, it seems that investors with more tokens have the ability to vote based on their monetary value, while token holders and smaller miners will lose their rights.

[danherbias07]

Easy money for a centralized exchange too.
They are the bag holders and I want to see how they will spread the profits they will make.
Ethereum is popular and many investors will try to take advantage of the offer of staking. Average retail investors will have no room for profits here, or if it does exist, I doubt it's satisfactory.
This will become the battle of the rich or the war of exchange.  So yes, it's centralized.

[GreatArkansas]

You have to understand the fact that prices depend on supply and demand. It should be added that the coin base and many more large pools can be controlled with their system.
(...)

OP is worrying about the decentralization here. Where Proof-of-stake protocol's main problem is decentralization. I read somewhere before saying, "It's much better to solve the scalability the decentralization".
This centralized issue is became common issue for POS protocol, not only for Ethereum, there are already lot of protocol already that is in POS and they are working fine, this is just a matter of time.

[lvsca]

yes, that's right, it looks like ethereum is getting here the "decentralization" feature is very thin. but there are advantages if ethereum has a POS system. such as the low cost of ethereum gas, this is very beneficial for their community with small transactions. Indeed, decentralization is very visible when mining through POW. but POW has many drawbacks, one of which is not environmentally friendly.

[OgNasty]

Centralization is a side effect of PoS by nature. There’s a reason people hate it so much and there’s an entire PoW industry. Some people don’t care though. They just want to play with a cool toy and smart contracts seem to fit the bill. This sort of change shows that the network is still very far from a finished product.

[fullhdpixel]

It seems the major concern about Proof of stake that experts here warned about has begin to see the light.
According to cointelegraph, 40% of ethereum nodes are controlled by two addresses which are Lido and Coinbase.
This has just proven more that POS is not decentralized and favours investors with higher token supply
source

How do you assume that these same things are not happening with POW as well? I mean even in POW environment, people with higher potential hold major portion of the hash power. In POW, it will be hash power and in POS, it will be in terms of tokens. But, in my understanding, instead of spending thousands of millions of dollars on Asic machines, you should be encouraged to spend the same money on tokens which will ensure your investments will not be enjoyed by third party but people who are in within your ecosystem or simply it will benefit all the holders.

This is the simplest reason why I love POS. Still, I am not aware of level of security and other network based aspects with POS. POW is a proven secured way for protecting against all types of vulnerabilities but I believe POS also will get enhanced to serve the similar features.

[eXtremal]

ethereum just merged a few days I think it's too soon to conclude this is centralized. No one knows in the future, maybe the POS done by ethereum will be different from the others. I believe it. So far, crypto always gives surprises, ethereum which is a big project of course will not be separated from its surprises in the future.

[JangoUnchained]

ethereum just merged a few days I think it's too soon to conclude this is centralized. No one knows in the future, maybe the POS done by ethereum will be different from the others. I believe it. So far, crypto always gives surprises, ethereum which is a big project of course will not be separated from its surprises in the future.

It's is centralized, ethereum is running on infura and infura is centralized, it seems vitalik has this in mind right from the beginning, this is why I said vitalik is untruthful, he pretend to always be in support of decentralisation and on the long run he has centralised plan in mind.

[Mpamaegbu]

I would feel very uncomfortable knowing my stake is frozen and millions of pre mined coins are easy to convert to btc or etc or cash.

I would too, especially after I suffered it firsthand when all my staked tokens on the kclp site disappeared as the staking site inappropriately shutdown in a fraudulent manner. It saddens my heart each time I think about it and I'm cocksure those who are looking at ETH may likely have certain level of skepticism based on the frozen thing.

[samcrypto]

ethereum just merged a few days I think it's too soon to conclude this is centralized. No one knows in the future, maybe the POS done by ethereum will be different from the others. I believe it. So far, crypto always gives surprises, ethereum which is a big project of course will not be separated from its surprises in the future.

You can see this with other project, POS is slowly becoming a centralized network but I think it’s still fine to many since many will still adopt especially now that ETH is already on POS network. Yes, the update happened a week ago and there’s still a lot of improvements needed before we see the pump, for now let’s see if ETH will become more effective under POS and due to the market situation, let’s not expect that much that the price will pump, ETH still depend on the Bitcoin trend.

[Moshi Moshi]

but this is just the beginning, what about the situation in the middle of the time when the merge is finished, it will make us see more clearly how ethereum is when it becomes POS. Indeed, POS ethereum has been controlled by these two big wallets, but the benefits that come from the community such as low fees must also be considered.

I don't think there's a problem with that, because there are indeed most holders on exchanges like Binance, or Coinbase,
so that means it's not a big problem, there are a lot of users on the exchange so maybe it's the Holder on that exchange

[Invester]

Literally POS is not centralized but prone for exploitation. When ETH converted to POS, the giant and most powerful companies in the world can accumulate up to the point that they can hold influence in the network. On the other hand, the same companies and powerful corporations can also invest mining rigs if in case ETH remained at POW. Anyhow, POS is the easier to centralize than POW. Either ETHW or ETC or maybe both can gain more supporters in the coming months and years if they can manage to stay alive.     

[DanWalker]

some people this is good news because they think that the merge of ethereum into POS makes gas costs drop drastically but on the other hand it is unfortunate that the characteristics of ethereum as a decentralized project are lost. maybe in a long time we will not recognize ethereum as a perfect decentralization.

You have to understand that nothing is 100% perfect. For those who do not care about decentralization, POS will be good for them because POS will help reduce gas fees to a lower level, transactions become faster. For those who value decentralization, they will certainly not like this.
How will POS affect ETH, we can't say at this point, we have to wait a bit longer how ETH will perform.
Switching to POS is bringing some more trouble for ETH, the SEC is treating it as a security. In addition to the OP's information: 46.15% of Ethereum's PoS nodes are controlled only by Lido and coinbase, the SEC also recently requested control of ETH as over 42.74% of the 7,807 Ethereum nodes are located in the US.
https://cointelegraph.com/news/sec-lawsuit-claims-jurisdiction-as-eth-nodes-are-clustered-in-the-us