Isn't Cashu a company? If the lightning network were centralized, wouldn't that defeat the purpose of building it into the protocol?

I get that it's really cool. And nothing against that company in particular, and it's not even that you're wrong. It very may develop that way. I just see a less than perfect pairing between Nostr and Cashu.

But I know so little about Cashu that maybe people shouldn't even listen to me.