Thank you btcusury, this was an very interesting read. It even made me consider to understand theymos' censorship and ascribe him some kind of heroism.
But yes, what you write is to some kind an eye-opener to understand the small block side.
On the other side you and Lauda seem to fail to understand the other side - the big blockers - and so you built a conspiracy theory about some takeover through "leaders" and "companies" manipulating the markets. The truth may be more simple:
the economy lost faith in core to solve the scalability problem.
Why? From a technical side, core presented a solution (SW) that may be better (I have doubt, but don't want to discuss). But bitcoin is not just technology, it's also economy and politic. It's nothing without exchanges and holders, and a consensus is nothing without a compromise. You seem to recognise this by acknowledging peter_r's grafic. But you don't acknowledge it enough to understand the other side. Maybe this is a result of engineering dominance in core and a lack of understanding of the need of economics and politics.
In the context of Bitcoin, "consensus" refers to "technical consensus" at the protocol level, not "economic consensus" at the user level or "political consensus" at opinion level, despite how much the latter two ideas/memes have been spread lately. Yes, it's permissionless, so you are free to create a hardforked chain bootstrapped off the Bitcoin blockchain, but don't pretend there is "consensus" if the "consensus" is only at a user (economic/political) level after (what at least appears to be) a relentless disinformation campaign to direct the technology into a particular untested/risky nonreversible territory.
Consensus within Bitcoin is the name for the governance mechanism of Bitcoin. It would be wrong to equate this with the literal meaning of the word consensus, which is that everyone agrees. With larger groups of people this becomes impossible. The consensus mechanism within Bitcoin allows us to resolve disagreements through proof of work and with the ability to split. Solving the problem of tyrrany of the majority. Thinking that consensus only refers to technical issues is false, many of these issues are inherently not just technical. "Consensus" in the literal meaning of the word is of course necessary for the continued operation of the Bitcoin network specifically on what I now call consensus critical issues, however as soon such issues become contentious the network is capable of diverging or changing. This is a very important feature of Bitcoin, which for me ensures the continued freedom and decentralization of the protocol.
Consensus is an emergent property which flows from the will of the economic majority. Proof of work is the best way to measure this consensus. The pools act as proxy for the miners, pools behave in a similar way to representatives within a representative democracy. Then in turn the miners act as a proxy for the economic majority. Since the miners are incentivized to follow the economic majority. In effect the economic majority rules Bitcoin, in other words the market rules Bitcoin. Bitcoin relies on the economic self-interest of the masses to govern consensus.
Try to see it as you were coinbase. The scalability issue is well known for years. In the past it was always said the blocklimit will just be raised. Now we discuss raising it since 1,5 years, and nothing happened by now.
Coinbase is just a business trying to benefit from a particular technology, without much regard for the direction of the technology -- one that happens to contain unprecedented revolutionary potential, which we should do our (technical) best to preserve/develop. The question is, why are
you into Bitcoin? To make money? Or to help move us toward a fairer economic system free from central control and manipulation (debt-based fractional reserve fiat bankster "money")?
One of the beautiful things about Bitcoin is how it incentivizes its participants towards the good of the network, which works towards the good for all. Coinbase wants what is best for Bitcoin, since that is what is best for them as well, the incentive is even stronger for the miners. This is how the game theory behind Bitcoin works, it does rely on certain aspects of human nature, we are a part of this great machine. The irony of Coinbase being a "Bitcoin Bank" so to speak, with custodial accounts, while being funded in part by Wall Street does not escape me. I suppose the enemy of my enemy is my friend.
As a technologist you could say: yes, it was a coup de liberation, we have SW (there are reasons to discusss this, but here I don't mind). As a politician seeking consensus through compromise, you can only say, it's a disaster.
The premise of "a politician seeking consensus through compromise", and even the premise of a politician itself, is highly questionable, to say the least.
Consensus in the literal meaning of the word is impossible among large groups of people, as I already said previously. Therefore the only times "consensus" is possible among larger groups of people is through compromise. Unless more totalitarian and dictatorial approaches are taken. Politics is about influence and the distribution of power and resources within a given community. For you to think that this is not relevant to Bitcoin or that the premise behind this entire discipline of thought is questionable, I think that is out of touch with reality. Bitcoin does relate to politics, economics, psychology, engineering and computer science among many more fields of thought. To understand the full scope of what Bitcoin is and what we think it should become and how to achieve these goals, requires a multidisciplinary approach.
the defenders of core's decision act "strange" (ddos, censorship)
Or, an impression has been created that they act strange. Discussion of DDoS comes from individuals, not Core devs, and you already got an answer to the moderation/censorship, no?
I think that by not officially speaking out against the censorship Core is complicit in the censorship. They have even honored Theymos by allowing him to be one of the signatories of the road map when he is not even a developer himself.
Do you really need a conspiracious takeover to understand why businesses support classic en mass?
No, but wouldn't it be the perfect opportunity for such a "takeover" to be executed? Like I
asked sgbett (to no response), "At what point, if at all, do you suppose an organized effort to protect the dying old comes into play?"
If you think that an increase to two megabyte represents a "takeover" of Bitcoin, I would think that is ridiculous, unless you think this is about control? I do not think any one implementation or development team should be in "control" of Bitcoin. If this was a takeover, it would represent a community takeover from a development team that no longer represents the community and has grown out of touch with the users as well as the economic majority.
Without exaggeration, I have never seen this much disconnect between user wishes and dev outcomes in 20+ years of open source.