The protocol indeed rely on large actors to enforces it. I would glad to see that the protocol itself is self-aware and reject any attempt to modify it, then we have a truly decentralized system without human interference. All the scaling solution will go off-chain, and I thing that will make bitcoin the most trustworthy/incorruptible monetary system on this planet
Now
that would be centralization, with this Hal 9000-like artificial intelligence in
control. The previous e-cash solutions failed largely because people did not
trust the central authority, and I doubt they would trust Hal either. They would fork
the code and give power back to users.
But currently the protocol is the centralized control point, if you can persuade 12 large actors (5 mining pools, 5 exchanges, 1 web wallet and 1 payment processor) to adopt one specific protocol, then you basically control the majority of this ecosystem, anyone else has neglectable influence
Who is the
you in the above sentence? No one controls the
protocol, it is open source, and one is free to modify it to one's heart's content
(and I do believe quite a lot of miners do fiddle with the parameters), but the
pursuit of rational self-interest ensures that the majority will dance to a
common tune.