So there's something I don't understand...
The block size debacle is catastrophic for Bitcoin's governance model...
The block size debacle is going to cause big problems down the road...
The block size debacle needs to be solved ASAP because updating will take time...
But why are so many people crying that the sky is falling RIGHT NOW?
Because their primary concern is not how the network operates. They want to take over the governance. XT's "we need 8mb/20mb blocks urgently" (last year) or hearn's fud like "btc will CRASH next year" (a year ago), were just FUD to create a problem-reaction-solution sequence.
Unless I'm seriously mistaken, I can send a Bitcoin transaction any time I want, even when blocks are full and mempool is backlogged, simply by spending a few cents in transaction fees.
Precisely. And fees are ridiculously low to even do that (like 0.05$ for first block inclusion / lower prices for lower priorities like 0.01$ - 0.02$)
So that means I can't use Bitcoin for micropayments, but so what? We've known that wasn't practical for awhile now. If I want to send any amount of money over a few dollars, the necessary fee for inclusion in an imminent block is minimal.
It's even usable for micropayments like 20 cents, if you don't mind the confirmation delay and go with fees like 1-2 cents.
I agree that this is a big issue for the future, and needs to be solved today so that it can be implemented before crisis levels approach, but at this moment it hardly seems catastrophic!
It isn't.
Also, I haven't been following the whole thing too closely...so basically a for-profit company called Blockstream is funding Bitcoin development, so core developers are basically in their pocket.
Some of the bitcoin core devs are also working for Blockstream. I don't remember the exact number but it's not that large, compared to the total contributors.