Agreed, you see this misunderstanding constantly here and it makes it hard to take the valid parts of any counter-arguments seriously. De-centralization doesn't

Agreed, you see this misunderstanding constantly here and it makes it hard to take the valid parts of any counter-arguments seriously. De-centralization doesn't mean that there are no centralized UI winners. It's that if those winners disappear overnight (https://nftplazas.com/hic-et-nunc-finds-a-solution-after-sudden-shut-down/ https://nftplazas.com/hic-et-nunc-finds-a-solution-after-sud...) or start to abuse their power, people can just move to alternatives and the company has no power to lock them in. HackerNews would love this kind of "data portability" hedge against the classic google deletion of chat apps and other services. The blockchain just provides a decentralized trusted authority to ensure that the portable data is authentic. Without this, any data portability solution would have a problem with spoofing, or the data would require another centralized authority to validate the data which defeats the purpose. I guess you could argue the government could be that authority but idk how that works in a global sense. Having a data portable chat app is sketch if someone can just make up messages and import them into their new 3rd party app. it's dangerous/unworkable if the application is something with more consequences like defi.