Consider this part 2 of what we can learn from other projects to avoid in Bitcoin (part 1 about Monero and 51% attacks)
First, let's set the scene for those of you who don't know:
What is Ethereums Sharding?
In simple terms: Sharding is a process in which nobody saves the whole blockchain - the common prefix of the blockchain (=blocks that are old enough to assume with reasonable likelihood will not change, which is an important property for State Machine Replication property and thus Continuous Byzantine Agreement in Bitcoin and other blockchains) is divided into equal parts and everyone saves just one of these parts. To scale Ethereum on main layer these maniacs cannot divide the data in 4 (save block beginning with x00, x01, x10 or x11) because 4x isn't scaling, they need to be fractured deeply to get any real leveraging effect.
What is torrenting?
Torrenting is the OG p2p network used for pirating stuff. You know - illegal movie or music etc. If you want to download "The Godfather part 1" (you are called "leecher" now) you don't download it from a server. You don't download it from some other dude either. You download it from the group of other pirates (so called "seeders"). A hash of the file ensures it's integrity, the number of seeders removes the trust from individual seeders. It is decentralized because nobody can destroy a single computer or remove a file from the network in general.
What do these have to do with each other?
Ethereums decentralized computer and torrenting are the same thing in many regards.
- Both try to be decentralized. Both provide data and programs in a decentralized way.
- The idea of staking in many ways is the same as peoples incentives to support the torrenting system - those with lots of ETH probably want Ethereum to succeed and those who use torrents a lot want there to be as many users to leech from which they try to achive by giving the community back lots to seed from.
- Bitcoin, Ethereum and torrents are permissionless: come and go as you please. Don't trust, verify.
But torrenting isn't a pure success story (from a technological standpoint speaking, let's leave the illegality debate for another day). Torrents die. Torrents die all the time. Ethereum risks this with sharding too. Which is a bummer when you can't find a niche artsy avantgarde movie that you remembered from 2005 and felt like rewatching can't now. But would be absolutely catastrophic with money.
Imagine your bank loosing track of your money and then claiming they thought another bank did save this data. And these maniacs don't want to stop at money - your house, your medical records, your passport too. I don't want to depend on thousands of validators each gatekeeping one centralized data shard. This is a dystopia.
None of this could happen with Bitcoin-Lightning. The whole blockchain can be saved by anybody without relevant hardware cost. Lightning channels are anchored to this blockchain. Node operators don't have to trust anyone storing their state.