Forking on a whim, so some VCs who bought $1000 BTCs are that much closer to realizing their dream of everyone using BTC at Coke machines and Starbucks, harms the store-of-value function by diluting the previously more scare and extremely valuable commodity of blockchain real estate.
I feel this brings us to the crux of the matter. Ultimately, the anti-fork argument boils down to "Bitcoin works for us, and does what we want it to, so we should burn the bridge behind us and protect our interests. Let's stop here".
The pro-fork argument says "actually, we're not done yet, let's get some more people (directly) involved with this and see what further innovations we can come up with. We see a bright future ahead and it will be a change for the better".
You gavincoin people simply won't do the math. There is no realistic point where a decent fraction of the worlds population can use native Bitcoin and have it remain supportable by anything but the most well situated mega-players.
You people remind me of someone who would put a gallon of gas into their tank and drive off into the desert toward a location 1000 miles away. You just cannot get there. You'll die. 'free markets' are not going to magically conjure up gas stations as needed for you. Really, what passes for your thought processes here seem just that stupid, and then some.
As usual, you've got it completely ass-backwards. I'm the one who wants to make sure there's enough fuel to get where we're going. You're the one who thinks they're going to get somewhere with an arbitrary limit on the resources.
And the best part is, you get to choose. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind that the fork has enough momentum behind it to go ahead. And when it does, you can stay behind on the old chain and stagnate in a niche with your precious limits, or you can stay with the clear majority and see where things go from here when enough people are on board to really challenge the widely accepted perceptions about how money should work.
If sidechains do eventually come to fruition then it's a win-win either way, but until then, the rest of us don't want to risk the network grinding to a halt because too many people wanted to try out Bitcoin and we hit a wall on some inane limit. The future potential for sidechains is not a substantial reason to delay this necessary update. The simple fact is, you can't promise sidechains will be ready in time before we start piling up unconfirmed transactions.
As for the unconfirmed transactions, they'll time out. If it stresses some nodes, good for the owners to know it now. It would be the kind of shock which is good for Bitcoin to have now and then. If Bitcoin only functions based on it's ability to stay ahead of the demand, that's pretty week and lame.
You honestly think the network failing to confirm transactions is good for the future of Bitcoin? If several blocks in a row end up full and people are left waiting for their transactions to go through, you think that's going to help improve things? I don't care how much you think you've done the math to support your side of the debate, you haven't considered the consequences and repercussions of placing artificial limits on a system that will work just fine without them. You've considered about the consequences of removing them, stating it
might one day in the distant future lead to centralisation. But even if that happens, it's far more likely that full blocks will happen first. Can we please deal with the hurdles in the order that they appear?