But that's also false. In practice the network isn't decentralized at all. This was very obviously the case since the very first bitcoin mining pool formed in 2010. The advantages of re-centralizing are far too great, and the whales have a clear financial interest to put themselves in charge of the network, so that's what they do. Any system that gives you more power because you put more starting cash into it can't be described as "providing financial democratization", so that characterization is just wrong. It's also wrong that they can't take away your ability to transact, the miners absolutely have the ability to block your wallet or ignore your transactions.
And I hope you can see the uselessness in creating a system that fits some vague definition of the word "decentralized" while nearly everyone who uses it just interacts with the centralized services on top of it, because maintaining the illusion of decentralization is so difficult and pointless that nobody actually bothers with it. Maybe it's "decentralized" if you're a whale and you want to capture large portions of the market with fraud without anyone being able to stop you. For everyone else, it's just not. The "base network" here is just for show and marketing purposes, it adds nothing of value to any real legitimate activity.
And I hope you can see the uselessness in creating a system that fits some vague definition of the word "decentralized" while nearly everyone who uses it just interacts with the centralized services on top of it, because maintaining the illusion of decentralization is so difficult and pointless that nobody actually bothers with it. Maybe it's "decentralized" if you're a whale and you want to capture large portions of the market with fraud without anyone being able to stop you. For everyone else, it's just not. The "base network" here is just for show and marketing purposes, it adds nothing of value to any real legitimate activity.