Suffice to say I voted in support of Gavin's proposal, but I must add the caveat that
it does not go far enough! By the way it was possible to send 1 MB of data over the telegraph network in 1913, if one had the finances of J. P. Morgan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._P._MorganIt doesn't go far enough but is a prudent step in the right direction and buys developers some time to focus on blockchain bloat and implementing sidechains.
Perhaps 20MB is the limit and we can find other ways to fund security and payment channels like Garzik's proposal impulse begin to take off.
I do empathize with many of the opposition being an anarchist myself , but don't believe that raising the block is that big of a deal because :
1) It may not have much of an immediate impact if at all and by the time blocks start exceeding 1MB , 20MB will be as insignificant as 1MB to us now
2) While the hard fork may add a slight amount of centralization, it may do the opposite as well with cheaper transactions moving from off the chain to on the chain
3) Centralization fears are exaggerated and can be reversed in the future. Mining pool centralization is a much bigger fear regardless. I'm not to comfortable with what essentially amounts to a 3 of 5 multisig to secure us against a 51% attack.
If you think Bitcoin is different, please explain the scenario where I send a stranger who I don't trust (so have to rely completely on the blockchain) $1million for something.
The only possible purpose I can come up with to fit such scenario is illicit high stakes transaction payment rail to facilitate drug lords, covert organizations like the CIA,corrupt banksters, kingpins , mobsters and dictators who need to transfer wealth in the millions between each other.
Isn't exactly what I had envisioned for bitcoin to solely be a tool for. Additionally, there aren't enough of them in the world to perform a continuous 7tps to support the network security if bitcoin was used for that purpose.