For now I think I'm fine with that. Centralized points will have their struggles maintaining features, and raw, signer-client-relay model can only get so smooth IMO. I still think much of the work of larger clients will still be heavily server dependent for a given app. This will likely lead to some soft-forks for optimization and such.

I think I'm okay with a few big-funded clients, because, while they have influence, they will still rely on the network to a point. The issue may be the pressure a big client puts on relay operators/developers, maybe load or feature set.

I think nostr will be as decentralized as the revenue source is. I think of it as a funnel, clients are user-facing applications and therefore have the most work and easiest revenue generation. However they depend on "public" infrastructure. So, clients now have the responsibility of UX. Incentivizing clients to in-house manage their own relays and therefor feature sets their user's want.

Nothing is stopping a client developer from hosting their own paid relays locked to their client app, walling off their network. To be honest I think were going to see that more, especially around content moderation. Fork a client, stand up your own relays, lock client to your relays. Closed and branded social media network.