Solana is a "Proof of Stake" network, a trust model where nodes can only be run by currency holders. There is a predetermined list of trusted identities- aka, centralization.
And to your point, centralized services do have better performance.
I'm not trying to be a downer- I think centralization can be incredibly valuable for building trusted systems. But they are not to be confused with trustless networks like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Chia.
I understand the concern of centralization on the Solana chain, it is a very valid concern. However, I would like to remind you that Ethereum used to be similarly centralized (of course it has been PoW to date so far, however the hashing power early in the project was quite centralized).
Ethereum in 2016 had the famous attack where 12 million ETH were stolen, and a rather centralized foundation was able to perform a hard fork to undo the transaction and recover the funds. This of course led to the split of Ethereum and Ethereum Classic.
Nowadays, I believe that such a fork would be nearly impossible for Ethereum to pull off, due to the decentralization of the hash rate and the differences in the power the Ethereum Foundation has on the chain, due to the maturity of the chain. Whether or not that is a good thing that it could not roll back such a transaction is almost a philosophical question lol.
In my mind, Solana is in a somewhat similar state to how early ETH was in terms of centralized power and control of the chain. It would not surprise me that as time marches on, Solana naturally decentralizes. It's not guaranteed by any means of course, but that is what I am expecting.
And to be quite honest, for most applications, I would rather have a degree of centralization than pay > $100 for gas fees. I am aware of the existence of Layer 2 solutions, but I'm not too sure that by making a somewhat complicated layering solution to solve scalability concerns on the network that it can achieve mass long-term adoption.
We'll see of course, just wanted to share my opinion on this.
> I am aware of the existence of Layer 2 solutions, but I'm not too sure that by making a somewhat complicated layering solution to solve scalability concerns on the network that it can achieve mass long-term adoption.
the base layers always get expensive because of demand for block space. but zkrollups get cheaper as more people use them and the share of the writing to the L1 is split between more parties.
solana has the exact same scaling strategy as eth, L2 rollups. but its harder for people to run on their own hardware for the L1. maybe thats something people care about, maybe not. time will tell.
Ethereum is also moving to proof of stake... While there are some proof of stake networks which are 'permissioned' (for example, Binance Smart Chain), Solana to my knowledge is permissionless, meaning anyone who can afford the hardware and minimum stake can run a node. This is still a barrier, but so is setting up a bitcoin mining node.
And to your point, centralized services do have better performance.
I'm not trying to be a downer- I think centralization can be incredibly valuable for building trusted systems. But they are not to be confused with trustless networks like Bitcoin, Ethereum, and Chia.