Quote from: solex on March 14, 2015, 08:53:05 AM

Quote from: iGotSpots on March 14, 2015, 08:31:15 AM

This change would bloat so hard and make Bitcoin inaccessible to a large portion of the world

That 1MB limit must be the world's most amazing piece of software.
3 years ago it kept the blocks at 0.1MB, two years ago at 0.2MB, a year ago at 0.3MB and today at 0.4MB

I mean, how can one number be so f...l...e...x...i...b...l...e?

Oh wait, its not really doing anything much, and neither will the 20MB.

We'll see it start to do much now that the limit is actually being reached. In the process of syncing the block chain, the first three fourths of the blocks take up one third of the hard drive space; that means one fourth of all the blocks take up two thirds of the disk space. Thanks to the limit, these ratios will begin to even out.

Quote from: LaudaM on March 14, 2015, 11:33:16 AM

Quote from: iGotSpots on March 14, 2015, 08:31:15 AM

This change would bloat so hard and make Bitcoin inaccessible to a large portion of the world

This post seems like spam to me. This has been discussed so many times in the thread and outside of it.
Because storage isn't like the cheapest component in a computer. Roll Eyes

Please read other posts first. Although I can't blame anyone, the thread has been going into circles for more than 100 pages. The useful posts would only take a few pages combined.
Increasing the limit to 20MB does not mean that we will instantly have 20MB blocks.

It's not just storage; there is bandwidth, cpu, and RAM to take into consideration.

You're the spammer; this point has been refuted many times.

Quote from: danielpbarron on January 31, 2015, 07:16:10 PM

Quote from: Mircea Popescu http://trilema.com/2015/third-pass-addressing-the-more-common-pseudo-arguments-raised-by-the-very-stupid-people-that-like-the-gavin-scamcoin-proposal/

XI. Raising the limit doesn't force the blocks to be filled. It just gives miners the option to make bigger blocks should market conditions make it to their advantage to do so.

This is not how economics work. Quoting Buffettⁱ :

Quote

The domestic textile industry operates in a commodity business, competing in a world market in which substantial excess capacity exists. Much of the trouble we experienced was attributable, both directly and indirectly, to competition from foreign countries whose workers are paid a small fraction of the U.S. minimum wage. But that in no way means that our labor force deserves any blame for our closing. In fact, in comparison with employees of American industry generally, our workers were poorly paid, as has been the case throughout the textile business. In contract negotiations, union leaders and members were sensitive to our disadvantageous cost position and did not push for unrealistic wage increases or unproductive work practices. To the contrary, they tried just as hard as we did to keep us competitive. Even during our liquidation period they performed superbly. (Ironically, we would have been better off financially if our union had behaved unreasonably some years ago; we then would have recognized the impossible future that we faced, promptly closed down, and avoided significant future losses.)

Over the years, we had the option of making large capital expenditures in the textile operation that would have allowed us to somewhat reduce variable costs. Each proposal to do so looked like an immediate winner. Measured by standard return-on-investment tests, in fact, these proposals usually promised greater economic benefits than would have resulted from comparable expenditures in our highly-profitable candy and newspaper businesses.

But the promised benefits from these textile investments were illusory. Many of our competitors, both domestic and foreign, were stepping up to the same kind of expenditures and, once enough companies did so, their reduced costs became the baseline for reduced prices industrywide. Viewed individually, each company's capital investment decision appeared cost-effective and rational; viewed collectively, the decisions neutralized each other and were irrational, just as happens when each person watching a parade decides he can see a little better if he stands on tiptoes.

After each round of investment, all the players had more money in the game and returns remained anemic. Thus, we faced a miserable choice: huge capital investment would have helped to keep our textile business alive, but would have left us with terrible returns on ever-growing amounts of capital. After the investment, moreover, the foreign competition would still have retained a major, continuing advantage in labor costs. A refusal to invest, however, would make us increasingly non-competitive, even measured against domestic textile manufacturers. I always thought myself in the position described by Woody Allen in one of his movies: "More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly."

For an understanding of how the to-invest-or-not-to-invest dilemma plays out in a commodity business, it is instructive to look at Burlington Industries, by far the largest U.S. textile company both 21 years ago and now. In 1964 Burlington had sales of $1.2 billion against our $50 million. It had strengths in both distribution and production that we could never hope to match and also, of course, had an earnings record far superior to ours. Its stock sold at 60 at the end of 1964; ours was 13.

Burlington made a decision to stick to the textile business, and in 1985 had sales of about $2.8 billion. During the 1964-85 period, the company made capital expenditures of about $3 billion, far more than any other U.S. textile company and more than $200-per-share on that $60 stock. A very large part of the expenditures, I am sure, was devoted to cost improvement and expansion. Given Burlington's basic commitment to stay in textiles, I would also surmise that the company's capital decisions were quite rational.

Nevertheless, Burlington has lost sales volume in real dollars and has far lower returns on sales and equity now than 20 years ago. Split 2-for-1 in 1965, the stock now sells at 34-on an adjusted basis, just a little over its $60 price in 1964. Meanwhile, the CPI has more than tripled. Therefore, each share commands about one-third the purchasing power it did at the end of 1964. Regular dividends have been paid but they, too, have shrunk significantly in purchasing power.

This devastating outcome for the shareholders indicates what can happen when much brain power and energy are applied to a faulty premise. The situation is suggestive of Samuel Johnson's horse: "A horse that can count to ten is a remarkable horse, not a remarkable mathematician." Likewise, a textile company that allocates capital brilliantly within its industry is a remarkable textile company, but not a remarkable business.

My conclusion from my own experiences and from much observation of other businesses is that a good managerial record (measured by economic returns) is far more a function of what business boat you get into than it is of how effectively you row (though intelligence and effort help considerably, of course, in any business, good or bad). Some years ago I wrote: "When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for poor fundamental economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact." Nothing has since changed my point of view on that matter. Should you find yourself in a chronically leaking boat, energy devoted to changing vessels is likely to be more productive than energy devoted to patching leaks.

So, no : infinite blocks to not give "the miners" any sort of option, because "the miners" as a collective noun do not exist. There exist individual miners exclusively, and the incentives of individuals are, should the Gavin scam actually be implemented, firmly oriented towards destroying the commons that is Bitcoin.

There's no way out of this problem, and simple ignorance of economy or game theory is not a solution.

Much of the "not full blocks" came from a time when bitcoin was not worth much and not worth attacking/abusing. It is now clear that bitcoin exists, and is very powerful. Now is the time that a limit is important. Without a limit, UnSavory Garnish will come around pumping all sorts of "put it on the block chain" "bitcoin 2.0" crud. The purpose of these obvious scams is to make maintenance of a full node the sort of thing that only their approved carries can afford -- not unlike the purpose of regulations which are often secretly promoted by the very industry they appear to restrict. The goal is to keep people like you and me from competing; too distracted with things that don't matter. "You can't run your own full node, but you can save your cat pictures on the decentralized cloud! Pay no mind that by 'decentralized' we mean a few of our 'trusted' servers that we can easily subpoena."

We oppose this fork primarily because we see bitcoin as a challenge to bad money and bad governments. We don't see bitcoin as a fancier way to do the same old things. As it runs now, bitcoin is exactly what we want. As it runs now, bitcoin is sound money that governments cannot control. Yes, that means the poor will not have easy access. No, that's not a problem; nice things are not for the poor. Nice things have a cost, and poor people can't pay by the very definition of them being poor.

They don't have to all be poor though! Being a billionaire has never been so cheap as it is today! 10 bitcoin is 1 billion satoshi (the true unit of account recorded in blocks). That's like 3k USD right now.