Quote from: Peter R on June 16, 2015, 06:00:48 AM

All of these groups I identified would also be fairly insensitive to the cost of running a node.

- the academics will apply for grants to operate their nodes so they can perform research

- the businesses and miners will run nodes as a cost of doing business

- the governments will run nodes for law enforcement, surveillance, and other purposes.

- the power users will run nodes because they want to.

Would it really be so bad if the far future looked like this?

Maybe not that bad, and if general technology companies are considered separate from Bitcoin-focused businesses, then perhaps another 155 could be added for them, as per the MSCI World Index (IT).
https://www.msci.com/resources/factsheets/index_fact_sheet/msci-world-information-technology-index-usd-net.pdf

It is easy to imagine that even non-Bitcoin tech companies would want to run at least one node to have a hook into a real-world blockchain instance..

Quote from: Spjuth on June 11, 2015, 09:46:12 PM

Microsoft supports Bitcoin XT! Grin