It is nice to see that some real philosophers have joined the discussion, I am a philosopher as well. I have constructed a simple argument of my own, you are welcome to try and rebuttal. There has been a lack of rational responses to my arguments so far, and far to much ad hominem and hyperbole. I believe that good philosophy should be simple.
To put it simply, if we do not increase the block size it will be more expensive and less people will be able to use it, that is to transact on the main chain directly, and instead we will be "forced" to us 3rd party payment processors.
However if we increase the block size then it will be less expensive and more people will be able to use it. Even if full nodes will only be able to be hosted on powerful computers, since miners do not run full nodes, the pools do.
Considering that these would be the most likely outcomes with increased adoption, to me it seems clear that increasing the block size would lead to more decentralization as a whole compared to keeping the restriction in place.
I can go into much more detail of course but I would like to keep it simple in the interest of constructive argument.
Throws in a
wrench fork if mining is equal to transaction fees after revenues perpetual increases in block size results in lower rewards, lower rewards = less incentive to mine after halving = Centralization under XT.
A limited supply leads to higher transaction volume above dust = More value per transaction + Miner incentive after halving = Long term growth and development
Spin it how you want it still ='s from both viewpoints.
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Solution A - Size Increases
Solution B - Side-chains
True Solution
- Will be determined as we approach the true date of settlement in 2016.
First of all you are not actually countering my argument here, you are arguing from a different point. Since mining centralization and decentralization from the users perspective are different things even though they are related.
I can counter this however, since I am a miner myself and have never believed that increasing the block size would lead to increased centralization of mining. Firstly you say that if we do not increase the block size you believe that there would be higher rewards for miners. I do not think that this is true, I think that it is more likely that there would be an increase in the reward for mining when there is increased adoption with an increased block size. Since there would be more transactions to collect fees from, especially if Bitcoin could gain the type of volume that Visa for instance presently does. As opposed to collecting fees of a lower amount of transaction that have a higher fee.
Secondly you claim that when there is less incentive to mine that there will be more mining centralization, I also do not see how this is true since mining incentive within the Bitcoin network is meant to be a self balancing system. The burden of proof is on your end for this particular statement, so i will wait for your response on that.
So in my opinion we need higher transaction volume in order to pay the miners into the future. I do not think that confining Bitcoin to the role of a clearing house so to speak would provide enough incentive for mining far into the future if we want Bitcoin to be the largest and therefore the most secure proof of work block chain. It would also be better to keep the network as inclusive and inexpensive as possible from the users perspective since it is more important to increase adoption first, this would also help Bitcoins survival into the future. There does need to be a block size limit and a fee market should develop in the future but I do not think that time is now since the block reward is still high and adoption is still relatively low.