The Bitcoin network relies on common rules; not common code. While you could argue that in all practicality, Bitcoin Core is *the* codebase with *the* developers that are *too centralized*, it doesn't have to stay that way. There are other forks of the codebase that comply with the same rules that have their own developers. Any code change that introduces an incompatibility with the existing network rules effectively forms a separate forked network. As such, a code change to the rules (captured, coerced, or otherwise) is only effective to the extent that network participants choose to accept it.