Not true. You can still use normal permissionless transactions, and start a hub without a permission. I was also worried about hubs getting too much power, but Lightning just takes all 'busy' paths (such as exchanges and payment providers) to their own roads. If a path is getting busier on mainnet, it is more economical to move it to Lightning. It doesn't favor centralization beyond what naturally happens (some places are busier). If there's someone with too much power, it's always possible to make another hub. It's kind of natural path-finding. I think hubs will be strongly geographical when people start using Bitcoin on their local purchases. Big stores don't also want to give Lightning fees to anyone so they set up their own hub.

Also, when the bulk of transactions moves to Lightning, the mainnet fees will become much lower.