I love Allen, and I think he's right.

I think that Lightning is destined to centralize some more, it's just how the incentives line up. The Lightning network reminds me of the internet itself, in a way.

The internet is more centralized than we would like, and more cucked than we would like. However, even in heavily unfree countries like China, which tries hard to lock its internet down, the free flow of information still exists. There are still more off-ramps and on-ramps than the state can hope to control, and more ways appear every day. Tor, VPNs, nostr, etc.

Lightning will be the same. It will possible to use it without KYC and with privacy. It might require an extra hoop or two, just like the internet now. But in the end, the state is too slow to stop it.

But we shouldn't allow ourselves to be complacent either. We need to keep pushing the boundaries. We have to build more than they can destroy.