Claim 1) is not refutable. It’s a hypothetical statement about the future. But regardless, we all know the average person will adopt the most convenient setup. So either self-sovereign is more convenient, or it won’t be the most popular. And that really has nothing to do with what is most adopted currently.

Claim 2) is obviously true. As far as privacy and zaps go, I doubt I will ever send an anonymous zap. I want the poster to know I zapped them, just like I want them to know I’m the one who replied to their post.

Claim 3) is claim 1) rephrased. And as I said before, it has little to do with entrenchment. The most convenient solution gets the most users. Period. The only thing that can change that is if users are in a hostile environment.

Claim 4) is probably true. But who cares? If you’ve already traded privacy and sovereignty for convenience, not sure why it’s a concern if custodians are being efficient.

I don’t think Claim 5) is true. It’s not like custodians are sucking up funding that would otherwise go to developers of self sovereign set ups. As soon as a convenient self sovereign set up emerges, it would get a lot of users. This is like saying because fiat exists there’s less pressure and funding for bitcoin development. That doesn’t add up to me. There’s people that care about privacy and sovereignty and people that don’t.

Now how about this? Any self-sovereign setup would require the user to already have bitcoin and make an initial base chain transaction right? In terms of on boarding non bitcoiners to zaps and lightning, it’s great that people are working on custodial solutions that can make this as easy as possible for newbies