they dont need to understand bitcoin inorder to understand that a promise was made to them. a promise that, for better or worse, the fundamental rules of the currency were concrete. let alternative cryptocurrencies solve this for us if it is infact a problem (which i think i can make a very good case for why it isnt).
Those of us who where paying attention in 2010 were promised the block size limitation was a temporary anti-flooding rule that would be removed when it was no longer needed so that Bitcoin could indeed support higher transaction rates.
If the devs changed their minds between now and then they should openly admit this. Publicly say the original plan changed, and why. Stop lying by claiming 1 megabyte blocks were originally intended as an economic feature when anyone can debunk this by reading the old threads.
Many of us have felt that Bitcoin was advertised as a peer-2-peer solution where a large percentage of the participants in the economy were capable of being peers. 'peers' were never advertised as being people who could afford datacenter resources, and many of us to not trust a solution which requires such resources in order to function.
So, one group was sold a bill of goods, and unfortunately a lot of people in either group bought it. Whether this 'false advertising' was deliberate I don't know and largely doubt. I expect that even for those who did recognize the issue, kicking the can down the road was the path of least resistance.
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=84247.msg933058#msg933058What's most appalling about this debate is the blatant dishonesty by those in favour of leaving the limits in place, even reaching up to some of the most prominent developers. Observing that dishonesty and evasion raises grave doubts in me about the viability of the project, much more so than any external attack.
For my part, I feel more comfortable with a solution in which decisions are made in a transparent manner even if it means that people who have different points of view than my own have a voice. I think it is possible to hold a variety of competing points of view without being 'dishonest'.
Hiding or discounting one point of view and decision making processes would create the most doubt in my mind.