> I find it interesting that OP says public crypto failed because of both fundamental misunderstandings and immature tech (internet trying to compete with newspapers in the 80s). Eventually, the internet was able to compete with newspapers and I think eventually public blockchain will compete with centralized companies.

Keep in mind that both of those technologies took years. TCP started development in 1973. It didn't fully mature for another decade, and then it wasn't mainstream until 1994-1996.

And even then it was the web that drove the adoption of the internet, not the other way around. Until the web, the internet was more of an academic curiosity.

> Networks can benefit from economies of scale without the rent seeking bottlenecks of centralized agents.

But there are side effects of non-centralized agents -- everyone needs to agree upon running the same algorithm (forking, security holes, etc). And immature networks can suffer a majority attack.

Meanwhile from a security perspective, there's greater efficiency with a centralized system. One security hole can be fixed for everyone on the network in one spot.