Quote from: Klestin on June 15, 2015, 02:02:15 PM

No. Code changes are decided by the majority of Bitcoin blocks mined. Nodes, retailers, and users will need to follow the majority of miners, or Bad Things happen.

Indeed, the most hash power ultimately does decide the longest chain, however the miners are ultimately at the mercy of the developers, full node consensus, merchants, and exchanges, and users.

There is a power dynamic between all of these groups. What happens when the community decides on something which upsets most of the developers (many of which voluntarily contribute to bitcoin core)? Do the miners and the community want them to walk away? What happens when a majority of the merchants and exchanges want something the miners don't, do the miners continue developing the longest chain of something that is as useless as most alts because no one accepts it and its just a speculative token?

Most of those Chinese miners probably are much better off with 1MB blocks because their poor internet connections but are willing to go along with a 10 MB limit because they need to consider the needs of the bitcoin ecosystem as a whole.

What is being tested here is if an open source project can find consensus without a "benevolent dictator" as Hearn wishes for bitcoin. In one sense he does make a good case as many open source projects do indeed function better with an ultimate decider like Linus with Linux, on another hand bitcoins core principles of decentralization make such a hierarchy somewhat contrary to the overall vision.