Rule by the economic majority is how Bitcoin is meant to be governed. So if the majority of people freely choose to adopt an alternative implementation of the Bitcoin protocol then this should be considered legitimate, even if you disagree. XT requires seventy five percent consensus in order for it to even initiate a fork after all.
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There is not going to be a "free choice". Who knows what Hearn promised supporters like Coinbase. Essentially the tactic is getting the major services to join you. Once everything is set up, the people will not have a "free choice" . It will either be sink or swim. Also 75% consensus is definitely not enough, and will cause damage (as intended). Face it, there's nothing good about XT. Do you want bigger blocks, be it 2,4,x MB? Fork Core, change the parameters/fork Core with BIP101 and there you have it.
If that were true, who do you suppose he's shilling for?
The same people who are writing your papers.