No central entity control sidechains, they are just a mathematical concept. Also no specific entity makes money from lightning networks.

How can you not know about ASICBOOST? its one of the main reason we are in this mess. Bitmain is not only in control of a large % of the hashing power they are cheating using ASICBOOST which they patented and implemented giving them a 15% efficiency gain equal to a 50% increase in profit over everyone else. The drawback is that they have to mess with what transaction they are including in blocks and not compatible with segwit optimization.

You should understand that none of the other altcoin have these political debates because nobody cares about them as much. I wish there was a viable alternative to Bitcoin as a viable reserve currency / reference unit of account but sadly I see none. Once we are past that mining centralisation phase bitcoin supremacy will be much harder to challenge.

Bitcoins fight is not againt other cryptos so much than it is againt TPTB, banks and governments.