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.
This is not centralization but a fixed set of consensus rule. You can select not to participate and start your alt-coin, but you can not change the rules. No human can change the physical property of gold, that's the reason it is the most trustworthy money for thousands of years
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.
In fact this
you is already here, it is called enterprise interest. There are many enterprises trying to push their desired features into bitcoin protocol. And it could even be an OPEC like organization that consists of large miners and exchanges, and there is strong incentive to cooperate to get higher profit by passing a new protocol