"You can't add value just by forking Bitcoin" may be what you are trying to say here, and I agree. I'm trying to think past that to what value could be added to the blockchain to justify collecting rent while preserving the decentralized trustless nature of the vision.
Yes, that's exactly what I mean. And I'll explicitly say that SegWit is run by rent-seekers. Yes, they do add value in the sense that they allow bitcoin to scale, but they do so by making it federated: at which point they're an immature, lower-value implementation of the traditional banking system. If you're okay with federation, just use traditional finance. If you're not okay with federation, then you aren't okay with SegWit. In neither case does SegWit add value.
> I'm trying to think past that to what value could be added to the blockchain to justify collecting rent while preserving the decentralized trustless nature of the vision.
But why though? If your goals are to centralize money in your pocket, using a decentralized structure and keeping it decentralized is like using a screwdriver to catch butterflies. It's the wrong tool for the job. It's using a decentralized, untrusted structure to achieve a centralized, trusted goal.
All the existing models I know of for making money off developing a blockchain involve some form of centralization. Either centralized mining (premining, ICOs) or breaking decentralization entirely (SegWit, Ripple).
Nano (née Raiblocks) uses a block lattice where each transaction from an account (accounts are first class citizens here) is appended onto a previous one, and only when accounts interact is there consensus required. Nano uses a combination of PoS and PoW (called Delegated Proof of Stake) to secure its chain. While in theory this is less distributed than blockchain (nodes elect delegates who actually perform the updates), in reality Bitcoin already is a network centralized around mining pools, so IMO dPoS openly acknowledges the centralization that already exists.
Because that's generally what really drives adoption, investors willing to fund innovation that adds value.
> All the existing models I know of for making money off developing a blockchain involve some form of centralization.
Lets be creative! Build a 'siphon' into the blockchain to capture small bits of each transaction and re-sell that to generate income? Or treat it as a traditional open source project and position yourself as the best implementation because you designed it.
There are also different types of centralization that don't necessarily involve interfering with the blockchain. You can decentralize the ledger but centralize the transaction entry. Or centralize the reporting (anyone can make entries but only the authority can verify them, subject to auditing).
Bitcoin users fall into basically two camps:
1. Users who want to ride the hype to make money (be it through speculation or through a centralized service).
2. Users who want untrusted decentralization as an ideological benefit.
If you're in the first camp, you have no reason to care about decentralization. And frankly, if you're in this camp, you're more likely to be taken by one of the more knowledgeable users in this camp who is running a scam of some sort than to make money yourself. The traditional banking system might be better for you. Not because you're not welcome, but because untrusted decentralization doesn't fit your goals.
If you're in the second camp, you have little reason to want adoption beyond a certain point. Obviously adoption increases value and utility of your coins, but it also pushes regulation (i.e. recent Chinese policy changes) and centralization (like SegWit). Large-scale adoption has not been a good thing for ideological proponents of Bitcoin.
It sounds like you're in the first camp, and you're not going to understand why the ideas you're posing don't work until you understand the second camp. Bitcoin was created for the goals of the second camp and if those goals aren't your goals, using it is probably counterproductive.
I mean, why use blockchain for this when there are appropriate centralized, trusted tools for solving centralized trusted problems.
> Build a 'siphon' into the blockchain to capture small bits of each transaction and re-sell that to generate income?
That's a centralized siphon (and why would anyone pay you to use this blockchain?).
> There are also different types of centralization that don't necessarily involve interfering with the blockchain. You can decentralize the ledger but centralize the transaction entry. Or centralize the reporting (anyone can make entries but only the authority can verify them, subject to auditing).
Verification is definitely a key part of blockchain--if you don't have decentralized verification you have a datomic-style log with a decentralized cache. If you centralize that I'd say you don't have a decentralized blockchain any more (this is basically Ripple, or if you're talking about non-coin type logs, git changelogs with signed commits where you only accept commits from entities you trust).
