What's wrong with the Lightning Network wallets?
Lighting Network has many issues that have not been fixed yet, and many vulnerabilities that have not been discovered just yet, and that could become an attack vector in the future, but what we have today is not perfect, and indeed it is far from it. Lightning Network wallets have the issue that they are centralizing the Lightning Network little by little.
You know that many call Lightning Network wallets, which are just bank services or bank accounts like PayPal, Robinhood, and even your average bank. Those services include Wallet of Satoshi, Blue Wallet, Strike, and Chivo. Those are bank account services, not wallets because they are custodians. They are no different than your crypto exchange like Gemini and Coinbase, meaning that you have to ask for permission every time you want to use your money, not to mention that you don't hold your private keys. You can lose money because of confiscation, a hacker attack, or an inside job. Those are the risk of custodian accounts, and it is time to stop calling services wallets.
But the other issue with Lightning Network is the centralization of the network because if people only use custodians, pretty soon everyone will only connect to those custodians nodes so that they can save on routing fees when transacting with users using such services. In other words, if people start to use more and more Wallet of Satoshi, pretty soon, more and more nodes and users that don't use custodians would want to connect to the LivingRoom of Satoshi node. You will save on routing but will centralize the network by utilizing more and more bank accounts. In other words, you want to put your node closer to the node everyone uses to save up on routing fees.
And second-generation wallets like Pheonix and Muun don't help either because even when those wallets open channels on your mobile wallet and you control your private keys, you are still only connecting to their nodes. For example, if you install and put some funds using Pheonix Wallet, the wallet will create a channel on your wallet. Still, that channel will be connected only to ACINQ, the company behind Phoenix Wallet and Eclair Mobile and computer software. In other words, you are still centralizing the network because your private mobile node will only connect to one node, and if everyone else wants to transact with you, they will have to connect to the ACINQ node. If too many users use that wallet, the network will become centralized sooner or later because one node will seek routing fees, and services will try to get as close as possible to the users.
The solution.
The solution will be to let users choose their nodes on the second-generation wallets, but that's where the problem starts. In the example of the Pheonix wallet, you must always connect with ACINQ, which means that you will pay your routing fees to the company creating your wallet. Still, if the creators of the wallet let you connect with other nodes, they will create a wallet from which someone else will benefit for free. In short, ACINQ will not make a penny if you connect their other nodes if you don't use their node, and they want to get paid by you for using their wallets and services. And this is the reason why many mobile wallets connect to their nodes. They are seeking revenue.
Eclair Mobile.
Eclair Mobile is decentralized when it comes to usage, but as such, ACINQ doesn't make a penny from you, and as such, the wallet has not been updated for months. Pheonix Wallet already has bc1 addresses, while Eclair Mobile uses three addresses. They will say that is because of security and because they don't want the users to close and open channels because migrating from 3 to bc1 address may present a problem, but there is one conspiracy of mine. Meaning it is my speculation or conspiracy.
Why would you give your users premium features if you don't make a penny?
Centralization can occur because users only use custodians for most of their activities or because many users are just connecting to a single point or node. That behavior enables them to save on fees but adds fewer options.
