Seems like a running convo with a couple dozen people

Define your idea of "free speech."

In it's idealized form "free speech" easy to defend but in reality no society has ever been able to protect it absolutely. There is a reason for that. Even in the U.S. there are practical limitations that protect people from things like threats and defamation. Are those limitations within bounds? It seems overly simplistic to me to defend "free speech" in such absolute terms when reality is just not that clean.

It's similar in some ways to the idea of a "free market". Has there ever been such a thing? Maybe something to strive for, yes, but in reality even a market benefits from some minimal regulation so there's a level playing field for everyone involved. An absolute "free market" can absolutely go wrong. Granted, regulation can definitely go too far and I don't claim to know where the lines should be. But to just fall on the side of "free" ideology and everyone else is wrong is no way to have a thoughtful debate.

Fair point. Assuming the current trend continues, the distribution will shift more to the right. To what extent, who knows.

Also, I wonder how ownership distribution looks for unique individuals who own bitcoin via self-custody vs via some custodian. I would not be surprised if the custodial owners greatly outnumber self-custodians today

I think you could apply broader themes of this essay to Lightning as well.