This is exactly right. Too many folks assume PoW is more decentralized because it's not tied to money, but what's the difference if mining requires money? As you note, PoS lowers the barrier to entry and actually creates a more egalitarian system, despite with Bitcoin maximalists think.
PoS doesn't exactly lower the barrier to entry. Anyone with a GPU can mine (very unlikely to be profitable as a stand alone miner)...but staking 32ETH is a pretty high cost right now ($90Kish).
However both can be overcome by pooling money or hash power...but then again that doesn't lead to more decentralization.
Decentralized pools like Rocketpool do lead to more decentralization and are almost not affected by the economies of scale issue mentioned above (there is a small commission to pay to the operator).
While pooling hashpower doesn't solve the economies of scale mentioned above. If your hashrate per kW is bad you will get a very poor yield on your investment. There is also a commission to pay to the pool operator. Pooling in PoW serves only to receive a more consistent revenue stream.
Pooling in PoW still means the pool operators are the ones to vote on proposals through the block mining. That is the whole point of decentralization...if one or two large pools (Ethermine and Sparkpool) get too big then they can sway proposals almost single handedly (they have 45% of ETH hash rate now).
> That is the whole point of decentralization...if one or two large pools (Ethermine and Sparkpool) get too big then they can sway proposals almost single handedly…
If the pool operators don't actually own the mining hardware then their power is limited to what the participants in the pool, who do own the hardware, allow them to do. If as an individual miner you don't like what your pool operator is doing you can always switch to another pool and take your delegated influence with you. Most proposals require supporting votes in many blocks before they take effect, so you have time to choose a more representative operator.
