Quote from: gmaxwell on February 08, 2016, 07:52:51 PM

Quote from: blunderer on February 08, 2016, 07:04:47 PM

Quote from: sgbett on February 08, 2016, 12:46:34 PM

...
I think its safe to say non-mining nodes *never* had any power. In the white paper the word 'node' was synonymous with the word 'miner'. It's only over time that this 'node/miner' separation has arisen.
Bitcoin is defined by hashrate, and the arguments (from all sides, me included heh) that something else *should* matter seem a bit petulant! ...

Hate to agree, but ... That.

but ... that ... is just untrue; it reflects a deep and fundamental misunderstanding of what Bitcoin is. The design of the bitcoin system deeply constrains miners-- and doing so is precisely how it creates economic incentives to keep them honest in the other ways it needs them to be. Miners cannot mine except in conformance with the rules imposed by the users of the system: it's physically impossible for them to break them.

Both deep AND fundamental misunderstanding? Shocked

Whoa, that's some bad misunderstanding right there..
Care to set me straight & quickly list the ways in which non-mining full nodes "deeply constrain miners"?
Or are you talking about the Bitcoin ideal (how things should be), and not the actual mechanics of Bitcoin?
An example of non-mining nodes "deeply constrain[ing] miners," if possible, would also be nice.