One thing I noticed while watching this Stardock video on playing tall vs. wide (at the 6:10 mark): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ONQ4UQBM5pY
...is that seems that the "Independence" ideology used to be worded differently. It used to say "-15% decay from colonies", so it actually reduced the amount of resource decay you would receive (as opposed to increasing it). According to the video, this is to facilitate a taller play style where you have a reduced amount core worlds with an increased amount of colonies feeding into those core worlds.
