In the latter case, there is a legal right to elect a board, which in turn gives control over management and ultimately the assets (shareholders can even vote to dissolve the corporation, which gives them access to the assets directly).
There are no such powers that exist on the part of coin holders.
I would argue, given how liquid exchange is between crypto markets and the transfer-ability of advantage between networks, that coin holders have more control.
It is a near zero fee (ignoring spread) proposition to reallocate resources.
Stock in major public corporations is more liquid than cryptocurrencies (particularly smaller alts) and fees are as low or lower. Smaller corporations and private corporations are less liquid to illiquid of course.
I don't understand the relevance of what you are saying though. If stock or coins change hands, nothing about that process allows stockholders or coin holders to exercise authority over the corporation or the coin network itself. All that happens is one owner is replaced by another.
The debacle around Bitcoin XT illustrates just how 'legal' it is to 'elect a board'.
If Bitcoin XT had dominated the nodes and stakeholders on the network, it would have been the equivalent of "electing" Gavin and Hearn to the board of directors.
I don't understand this paragraph at all
There are really only two things that coin holders can do:
1. Stake according to the network rules and their own individual best interests and without collusion, which makes the network secure provided that the stake is adequately distributed.
2. Individually or in collusion with other coin holders, stake maliciously and "51% attack" the network. This can include: a) blocking all transactions in a sort of doomsday button to destroy the coin, b) selectively blocking transactions (and/or blocks) to gain some advantage for the attacker, c) rewrite the chain to perform double spend attacks.
This idea of coin holder voting is creating a system that facilities and to an extent legitimizes #2. It makes the entire system less secure and therefore ultimately less valuable, even though it may seem expedient in the short term for the purposes of "governance", especially if you happen to be in the majority.
I categorically disagree.
I do not believe there is any redeemable argument against creating a system in which network participants can express their opinion about the direction of development.
The alternative is that the development team pays no mind what-so-ever to the users of the network.
You are entitled to disagree of course, but everything I said about the mechanism by which blockchains function was correct (as far as I know -- if someone spots an error please point it out so I can correct it).
I think one of the points of contention here is a misunderstanding about what is intended by this process.
We are debating different points.
Every single soft-fork in crypto history (though there have been few) has relied on this metric.
I don't know what points we are debating. I'm making observations about how blockchains function and the dangers of 51% attacks.
Most of the soft forks I know about have happened in the context of Bitcoin where the typical threshold for activation has been 95%. This serves as a proxy for widespread, essentially universal, acceptance and adoption of the change. In no case of which I am aware has a contentious change been made as a soft fork prior to widespread acceptance of the change.
What is the alternative?
I already answered this. You don't like my answer. It did not involve shills on bitcointalk.