I believe there is a very real possibility that LN will become centralized. A lot of people will dismiss this, but they shouldn't. I still think LN is the best scaling option we have, I'm not advocating against it, but let's go in with eyes wide open here.

The incentives of the network line up to centralize around large liquidity providers. These large providers are likely to be highly visible and targets of government regulation. If they can trap large liquidity providers in their net, the majority of the network might follow them into a garden that gradually walls up, like the current banking system.

We have another routing network to look at: the internet. It is largely cucked, fully KYC'ed (at least in the United States). Nevertheless, the scale and speed of innovation makes it actually very difficult to regulate, in reality. This is my main hope for the lightning network: that it will develop too fast for out of touch regulators to ever get a full handle on.