My opinion... Is that we won't see better mining decentralization until we have more demand for blockspace.
Right now the vast majority of the rewards to miners are from the subsidy, meaning that FPPS pools aka FPPS "big pools" know what to pay out ahead of time and can pay due to their size.
If you as a pool know what your capital requirements are each block regardless of luck (whether your pool finds a block or not) then you can continue to pay out... Even if you don't find a block consistently day after day.
In other words you pay out the same every day to your "workers" because the fees are negligible and all you care about is subsidy and you know what that is ahead of time.
On the other hand demand for blockspcae can be inconsistent and vary wildly... Putting FPPS "payout guaranteed" pools at a disadvantage relative to PPLMS pools that only payout if they hit blocks. Basically because FPPS pools don't pay out more even if the fees are high...
If the pools only payout when they actually hit blocks on the other hand... they can payout based on fees in addition to subsidy meaning they will pay more relative to FPPS pools even if the payouts aren't nearly as consistent.
Ocean to their credit has really articulated this well - their PPLMS pay per last mined share pays out when Ocean actually hits blocks... Meaning that higher fee blocks will payout more than lower ones earning miners more...
IF there are higher fees to begin with and miners can deal with slightly lower variance.
Combine this with the censorship that is inevitable should bitcoin be used as a medium of exchange (big pools could be pressured by governments) and higher fee, censorship resistant blocks mined by PPLMS pools pay significantly more than the "current" FPPS pools that pay more-or-less on subsidy alone.
Its why I stress using bitcoin and paying fees as being so important, its not just miner revenue but the decentralization and authenticity of block template construction AKA actually decentralized mining as opposed to... "guaranteed payouts" regardless of fees because block subsidy is the only thing that matters.
TL;Dr actually using bitcoin has 4th/5th order effects that improve not only revenue but decentralization + miner survivability as well + network decentralization.
My opinion... Is that we won't see better mining decentralization until we have more demand for blockspace.
Right now the vast majority of the rewards to miners are from the subsidy, meaning that FPPS pools aka FPPS "big pools" know what to pay out ahead of time and can pay due to their size.
If you as a pool know what your capital requirements are each block regardless of luck (whether your pool finds a block or not) then you can continue to pay out... Even if you don't find a block consistently day after day.
In other words you pay out the same every day to your "workers" because the fees are negligible and all you care about is subsidy and you know what that is ahead of time.
On the other hand demand for blockspcae can be inconsistent and vary wildly... Putting FPPS "payout guaranteed" pools at a disadvantage relative to PPLMS pools that only payout if they hit blocks. Basically because FPPS pools don't pay out more even if the fees are high...
If the pools only payout when they actually hit blocks on the other hand... they can payout based on fees in addition to subsidy meaning they will pay more relative to FPPS pools even if the payouts aren't nearly as consistent.
Ocean to their credit has really articulated this well - their PPLMS pay per last mined share pays out when Ocean actually hits blocks... Meaning that higher fee blocks will payout more than lower ones earning miners more...
IF there are higher fees to begin with and miners can deal with slightly lower variance.
Combine this with the censorship that is inevitable should bitcoin be used as a medium of exchange (big pools could be pressured by governments) and higher fee, censorship resistant blocks mined by PPLMS pools pay significantly more than the "current" FPPS pools that pay more-or-less on subsidy alone.
Its why I stress using bitcoin and paying fees as being so important, its not just miner revenue but the decentralization and authenticity of block template construction AKA actually decentralized mining as opposed to... "guaranteed payouts" regardless of fees because block subsidy is the only thing that matters.
TL;Dr actually using bitcoin has 4th/5th order effects that improve not only revenue but decentralization + miner survivability as well + network decentralization.
Edit - just realized this could be its own post.