> However, fails to notice that pools are made of individual miners/groups and do not represenet single huge datacenters. Groups/individuals can often change po

> However, fails to notice that pools are made of individual miners/groups and do not represenet single huge datacenters. Groups/individuals can often change pools, and this is not an uncommon practice. citation needed. The trend in proof-of-work mining is consolidation of costs into large data centers[0], hence why it is no longer profitable for you to run an ASIC in your garage. Furthermore, there are very few profitable pools to choose from [0]. Large miners risk losing a lot of money by changing pools partly because not all pools provide as much revenue as the others. > where multiple actors discuss rationally the best course of action for their community, and then move in regards to that course. No one forced the community to follow their moves, but when they did, the results were better for the whole community. 3 individuals decided Bitcoin would orphan the longest chain [1]. The community had no say in the matter. How is that not centralized consensus making? > Which I absolutely agree. Decentralized does not mean efficient, I dont argue that. It is not only efficiency, it is also robustness. The more centralized the consensus-making mechanism of a blockchain is, the least likely consensus failures are [2]. If no one would have took control in 2013, there would have been 2 chains for an undetermined amount of time, leading to massive levels of fraud and money loss [1]. Do you think society would benefit more from a Bitcoin that has massive consensus failures like that or would you rather a Bitcoin that has a central authority (the handful of GitHub commiters + mining pool operators) that can quickly fix consensus failures and prevent large institutions from losing a ton of money? [0] https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.03998 https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.03998 [1] https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2015/07/28/analyzing-the-2013-bitcoin-fork-centralized-decision-making-saved-the-day/ https://freedom-to-tinker.com/2015/07/28/analyzing-the-2013-... [2] https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/doc/wp/2017/wp_tse_817.pdf https://www.tse-fr.eu/sites/default/files/TSE/documents/doc/...