In my mind, Solana is making a bet that blockchain scalability is more important to optimize for than decentralization.
I think there will be a niche for each of the three corners of the 'Scalability Trilemma': Decentralization, Security, and Scalability (pick two, can't optimize for all three).
Thinking from a competitive standpoint-
Bitcoin and Ethereum have optimized for Decentralization and Security, and left the lane wide open for others to optimize for Scalability. Solana has filled the role with the most credible team (Anatoly Yakovenko), tech (Proof-of-History), and now community (NFT energy).
I wrote a little more about it here: