The reason why the blocks are regulated to 1mb is to make the network scale up. That means the network should keep growing in terms of number of nodes as the hardware becomes cheaper and the bandwidth becomes faster. What many people have failed to know is bandwidth grows slower and slower as the years pass by, and network latency slower still.


You talk like Segwit is very complicated. It is a simple malleability fix. The block size increase is a side effect. Plus you talk of side chains, then why not a 2nd offchain layer?


It is, and Bitcoin's regulated block size to 1mb will scale the network up. A good example of centralization and its network designed scaled down is Ethereum. Their blockchain is 1tb large and increasing, and an increasing number of nodes cannot keep up with the network.

Consider that their miners, who control the gas limit, which also control the block size are playing nice by regulating the blocks.

So your arguments getting weaker... or malleability ? ETH (apples - oranges) ?  

I leave it up to you to draw the final picture of BTC future, where you surely hope many small ppl are STILL happily running cheap relay nodes - connected to a few monster nodes from mining pools etc ,  never ever will be able to pay for a safe on-chain settlement for all their fancy un-secure TXs (any interface and off-chain tx storage ...  IS by orders of magnitude more un-secure than on-chain)  - because that secure on-chain settlement will exceed the cost of running their cheap on-chain settlement nodes by orders of magnitude....  so why running them ?
 Only for 'decentralization'?  How much is needed really ?

I rather will go with that picture Joannes Vermorel was drawing, where manny of the solvent corps with proper business cases and risk managements behind will run the expensive shit for all the other ppl in the world for good. Still that many, that we have enough decentralization at work, because we all (should) know that Bitcoin has good game theoretical economical alignments at work from the very beginning (a variant  of the Nash Equilibrium)!  So I m really not concerned about any 'too high un-decentralization' - you can have 'decentralization' at any scale -> what makes Bitcoin a fractal like structure.


 

I want to get back to this, and I am embrassed to say that I am not sure how that works. Who decides when to increase the "flex cap" limit? Is it the miners only, or does it have to be in consensus with the non-mining full nodes?

"just route it around"
thats called broadcasting to mainnet to get your funds out of the channel you have with the hub.
you[$30-$30]hub[$30-30]destination                          mainnet: you[$0]
you[settledmainnet]hub[$30-30]destination                 mainnet: you[$30]

and then making another mainnet tx to put funds into a new channel with another party to hop your payments without a hub involved

you[$0-$30]hop[$30-30]hop[$30-$30]destination         mainnet: you[$30]
you[$30-$30]hop[$30-30]hop[$30-$30]destination         mainnet: you[$0]

and ofcourse.. hope the HOP your now channeled to also are not upto the same hijynx as the hub was

anyway moving forward a few concepts..
new invention.  factory.. lets call it LN fortknox.. (idea is to put funds into factories so you dont ned to settle to mainnet because your initial funding channel funding is not from your own mainnet tx. but from your mainnet funding going to fortknox an they pay your channel partner who then pays you)

you put funds into LNfortknox. and lock it up for 2 years. you then set up a channel with a well funded hub whereby you dont put funds in. and fortknox then routes a payment to the hub via their relationship and the hub sets up the initial TX to give you part of their funds
EG
instead of
you[$30 - $30]hub where that $30 is your own value you lockd in from your own mainnet tx..
its like this
you[$0 - $60]hub[$0 - $30]FK where the $30in in FK is your own value you locked into fortknox. the hubs $60 is the hbs UTXO (that he will have to settle)
and then this happens
you[$0 - $60]hub[$30 - $0]FK
you[$30 - $30]hub[$30 - $0]FK

now you have $30. but its not using your own initial UTXO you owned locked into the hub chnnel. the funds are a share of hubs initial $60 UTXO
your UTXO is locked in fortknox(factory)

moving on say your sick of hub and you want to move funds to hub2. and your new id Utu(you2)
.. now to get out of a channel you can do it without caring about rbroadcasting to mainnet. you make a payment back to fortknox and tell fortknox where you want to put that payment. so lts start with how it looks befor you dcid to leave the channel

you[$30 - $30]hub[$30 - $0]FK[$30 - $0]hub2[$60 - $0]Uto
so
you[$0 - $60]hub[$30 - $0]FK[$30 - $0]hub2[$60 - $0]Uto
you[$0 - $60]hub[$0 - $30]FK[$30 - $0]hub2[$60 - $0]Uto
you[$0 - $60]hub[$0 - $30]FK[$0 - $30]hub2[$60 - $0]Uto
you[$0 - $60]hub[$0 - $30]FK[$0 - $30]hub2[$30 - $30]Uto

now you have your funds in a new channel and dont care about the old channel bcause your mainnet UTXO is not lockd to that initial hub channel. so  you can forget about it and leave the hub with the problem of settling out their balance

but.. heres the rub, although you think you have less worry about closing a channel becaus your iinitial UTXO is not locke to that hub...you still have to get the hub to agree to pass the $30 out. meaning
at the state
you[$30 - $30]hub[$30 - $0]FK[$30 - $0]hub2[$60 - $0]Uto

if they are playing hijinks they can still hold funds to ransom. by refusing to sign your $30 back out of channel
also.. hub can spend the $30 the hub has with fortknox.. meaning the hub then has no value left in hub-fk to then pay to fortknox to then allow you get fortknox to rout your $30 to a new channel all offchain EG
you[$30 - $30]hub[$0 - $30]FK[$30 - $0]hub2[$60 - $0]Uto
as you can see hub spend it for hubs coffee. but now even if you give hub the $30 in you-hub..  hub cant then give another $30 to FK because hub-FK has $0 hub balance to do so

meeaning your again stuck with having to broadcast out the you-hub tx to mainnet. which hub could treat as an unsanctioned event and invoke a punishment

in short. if hijinks is occuring and even if you think using a factory will help reduce the amount of times you need to close a channel via mainnet settlemnt.. the end result is your still at the same risk of needing to settle to mainnet to get your $30 out of a hub is upto hijinks.

P.S there are far more vulnerabilities/ransoms/blackmail/hijinks risks that i can describe. but yea tryin to close a channel is not just a easy ok, done in 0.002 seconds no issues. the reason, even with factories.. well thats simple. DUAL AUTHORISATION RQUIRED every time. LN is not a simple single party push payment system so if the other party messes around. your stuck and may end up paying the cost of their hijinks

Yes, thx good summary.

The peer to peer trustless Bitcoin character is removed. Congrats


You could only do peer to peer with your existing, frequently used peers, simple netting application. But actually, no such complex LN needed for that.

Maybe I misunderstood but how would it be "meaningless" if it is enforced to stay under a limit even if pools can decide but only if up to that limit?


Yes it is very bad because it would be open to Sybil attacks. It would be easy for some group of people to set up and run nodes in Alibaba cloud service.


The Core developers should not be pressured by fraudsters like Roger Ver, Craig Wright, or the mining cartels. Do you agree or disagree?

I think Lightning network is decentralized. 

Yes but the question was should the Core developers be pressured and follow the agenda of the fraudsters like Roger Ver, Craig Wright, and the mining cartel?


That I will not deny, but tell me which other group of developers are as good as Core?

Ok but you know I would disagree and ask what "magical numbers" are you talking about? Are you insinuating that the Core developers are using "magic computer science" to maintain Bitcoin?


There will always come an external cost on any system. Internalize on that very deeply.


Then we should follow Satoshi like a high priest of a religion? Is that how the community should decide what is and what is not Bitcoin?

Plus you did not answer which group of developers are as good as the Core developers.