Comment by elihu

Maybe a useful mental model is a trampoline? The grid is like a jumping elephant or something (I don't know if they jump, we'll say they do for the sake of the analogy), and you could have people also jumping on the trampoline. If they're a bit late, the elephant launches them in the air, and if they're a bit early the elephant sucks the energy out of their jump, but that energy makes the elephant jump higher. And a fully distributed grid would be one where there is no elephant, just a million people jumping on a trampoline.