There are zero gatekeepers now, but the difficulty to run a lightning channel and the liquidity that will be required at scale will lead to centralization. Liquid’s privacy is a huge concern for me. Only the amounts and type of assets are hidden on Liquid. If you want to give Bitcoin to Canadian truckers, but you’re not supposed to transact with them, you would not want to use Liquid. Same with nostr DMs. KYC Bitcoin goes in and KYC Bitcoin comes out. Central banks are not threatened at all. The idea that a soft fork can be dangerous, and there are people who want to restrict access to protect us, gives me many red flags. If they are popular, then the market has chosen. Anyone is still free to use drivechains, Liquid, lightning, or even legacy. This is why Bitcoin is not a democracy.

Lightning essentially works via 6 degrees of separation. Every well connected hub makes it easier for individuals to manage a few channels, not harder. People keep saying Liquid is KYC, but it looks to me like you can download the software for Liquid, run a node & peg-in bitcoin for LBTC completely anonymously. IIRC I spun up a node at one point but never did the on-chain swap. You can also exchange BTC for LBTC & (more recently) swap in & out via Lightning. I suspect the reason for on-chain peg-outs being only to verfied addresses is simply to mitigate the harm done by any possible withdrawal bug. "Popularity wins" is the halmark of democracy. As a member of an intolerant minority I will work to prevent drivechain like changes the same way I did big blocks.