> they can always lower it later
I don't think this is true. Once you have blocks on the chain greater than 1mb, those blocks must be valid forever. That means protocol must support new blocksize forever.
Also, it's misleading to say that large blocks make bitcoin centralized. Even with large blocks, there will still be enough players that the ledger is still protected through proof of work. In any case the hashing power remains centralized regardless of block size.
You are misunderstanding the meaning of the word "decentralized" when it comes to blockchains. It doesn't mean "available to be run by the masses". It refers to the solving of the Byzantine General problem through proof of work to prevent tampering and double spend, which would still function fine even if only a few thousand nodes existed around the world.
Centralized off-chain solutions are much less of a problem. Consider paypal. Everyone hates it but they're the only game in town because its network is self-contained; network effects prevent any legitimate competition. With centralized transactions through bitcoin, there are no network effects to prevent an upstart from competing in this space.
You are talking about concentration and consolidation at the human and social level, which does not change anything about how the blockchain is designed or functions, and is orthogonal. And nothing is going to change that. The government could shut off all electricity and the blockchain is dead.
You could have the consensus rules take the block height into consideration, so blocks after a certain # must be under X MB, but previous blocks can be up to Y MB.
And, as the GP pointed out, the sum of practical temporary solutions will have a very bad long-term effect. Of course, that doesn't mean that anybody will change course.
I can't speak for others, but above all I would want the costs to be predictable. There is no reasonable way to divine transaction fees at the moment.
BitPay certainly doesn't help. They handle the payments for most sites where I sometimes pay in Bitcoin. After submitting a payment they'll show a page saying "we saw your transaction, but the fees you specified seem pretty low". That's not helpful. What would be helpful would be to tell me before I pay how much they recommend as fee. If it's $5, I may be willing to pay it if I'm sure that will placate the BitPay gods.
You might be right, but keep in mind that there's also a significant chunk of people mostly sending amounts in the tens of thousands. $5 doesn't feel like very much then.
Even gold can do that better.
For someone making minimum wage in the US, that $5 is on the order of 40 minutes of labor just to make a single payment. That's simply not viable.
So... fitting squarely into the stereotype sketched above, I don't mind that much paying a few dollars for ordering a couple of pizzas. My problem (as mentioned in a cousin comment) is the annoying unpredictability of the fees.
Is it? Where do I have the choice to pay with Bitcoin Cash?
> People don't want to spend extra money.
So they shouldn't use Bitcoin Cash, which at current exchange rates buys them fewer pizzas per unit than Bitcoin does.
As a techie I might consider using bitcoin even if the confirmation time is high.
Under what circumstances would you allow me to spend Bitcoin rather than dollars?
In a certain sense, yes, sure. What I'm saying is that, due to appreciation of my Bitcoins, those $5, as well as the actual price of the pizza, were essentially a gift to me from the Bitcoin community.
I don't mind spending free food tokens that were gifted to me. Even if spending the free food tokens costs me fees (expressed in free food tokens), and I might possibly trade those free food tokens for a slightly higher amount in dollars (but incurring other fees). Especially since, if everyone stopped using their free food tokens, everyone's free food tokens would stop being usable.
As fees get higher, those addresses become unspendable.