Small blocker: Bitcoin cannot scale indefinitely simply by increasing the block size. The bigger we make blocks, the fewer people will be able to run full nodes, and thus the less secure the network is. Bitcoin cannot scale to Visa-type levels or even close while still remaining secure and decentralized.
The small block argument falls at this fist hurdle. If bitcoin gets bigger, it - well -
Gets Bigger. There is no escaping that fact. If people want bitcoin to be a major player as a payment option for millions, then they will almost certainly not be able to run a full validating node on any shity 486 they have lying about the house.
And please don't insult us by crying "But segregated witness!" - segwit will require all full validating nodes to transmit and store as much, if not more, data as bitcoin currently does.
The fact that small blockers trot this non-argument out as a cornerstone for maintaining the limit is a clear indication of how untenable their position is.
But Lightning!
SegWit is the foundations for Lightning.
Segwit soft fork, followed by Blocksize hard fork.
Yes, all 3. SegWit. Then Lightning. Then Blocksize. or maybe swap the last 2, depends a bit.
Lightning is the only credible plan to scale up to billions using Bitcoin.
Who wouldn't be in favour of implementing the plan that actually scales up?
This is where we disagree. I do not consider moving transactions off chain to be a way to scale Bitcoin directly at all, it is the very opposite of that. The only way to scale Bitcoin directly and significantly is by increasing the blocksize. People can use lighting if they want to or not, that is their choice and that is fine. However arbitrarily restricting the blocksize, especially as technology increases for the purpose of incentivizing people to move more of their transactions off chain is wrong. Give people the free choice, if they prefer to use the lighting network over Bitcoin then that is fine and we will not need to increase the blocksize again.
Today however, the blocks are filling up and many people do not want a fee market. It is wrong for Core to attempt to unilaterally decide to change the economic policy of Bitcoin in this way. Lighting network is not complete and neither is SegWit, we can simply increase the blocksize to two megabytes. This will not destroy Bitcoin, as some people claim. This will allow Bitcoin to continue to grow, which is good for both decentralization and global financial freedom.