To understand why I would welcome such a thing, one needs to understand that I see a fair amount of utility in having an XT fork which siphoned off a sizable number of 'bitcoiners' who are deeply ignorant about the principles of the system and are mostly MultiBitch-class users who add no value. They'd stop even being users if their transactions were not deeply subsidized anyway, and the only way that is sustainable is if large corporates took over infrastructure operation. I say let Hearn have them...their loss would only strengthen Bitcoin.
See, I can never tell where you small-blockians actually stand on this one. On the one hand some of you argue that even if the miners agree to the fork, it's only a "valid" fork if the "economic majority" agree, but then one of you goes and argues that SPV users (who will become an increasing majority over time) are a drain on the system and don't matter. Which is it? You sound like iCEBREAKER with his
"peasants" comment.
The problem you have, is that Bitcoin has always been marketed as a a permissionless global payment network. Most of the businesses who have invested in this permissionless global payments network (oddly enough) quite like the idea of
having a permissionless global payment network. Most of the users who signed up to the idea of a global permissionless payment network also
want to have a global permissionless payment network. The pressure is mounting for scalability. Then you come along expecting to be able to tell them they can't use the blockchain for a global permissionless payment network because they "are deeply ignorant about the principles of the system". Except you can't tell them they can't use it, because it's permissionless (did I mention that part?). You can't physically stop them from using the blockchain. The great unwashed are coming to clutter up your blockchain with their pesky cups of coffee and that prospect terrifies you. So your only hope to protect your own personal vested interests is to try and price them out into third party payment channels by artificially limiting the number of transactions.
Am I close?
I absolutely want the 'peasants' to have good solutions which isolate them from abuse by the established financial sector and their hired gun enforcers in the government. I'm a peasant myself after all and only hold some BTC by happenstance (and because I've been studying the mainstream financial scam for years.)
I see distributed autonomous sidechains as the best way to both protect Bitcoin from subversion of various types AND to provide the peasants with robust solutions which are tuned to their needs.
I am completely practicing what I preach here by the way. I use Bitcoin for only high value transactions which I've not done for over a year, and I pay currently 0.01 BTC as a fee since that was worth it for the service I get. I am greatly looking forward to using various sidechains for various purposes in real-world-land.