If Sony proactively communicated what they wanted to permission on their chain (eg no memecoins), would people have accepted that?

Was the bigger issue that memecoins were allowed to exist and then censored?

anyone out there have an opinion on permissioned L3s?

Completely agree. So this is where Sony went wrong, correct?

permissioning is fine if the rules of the game are clear to users beforehand. if not, and the rules deviate from the norm but are only clarified and enforced after the fact, that’s basically rugging

Half the chains in Cosmos are permissioned so there's a precedent. Their chain would've been DOA if everyone had to submit to Sony before deploying. I'm not sure if the risk of a sudden network wide rug via censorship is any better though. In a way it's more cruel to everyone.