Expensive servers? Don't be ridiculous. I run a full node on a computer I bought years ago for under 0.3 BTC ($300). While using that computer for other tasks as well. Sure, at some point in the future I may need to upgrade. But 0.3 BTC is not an inordinate amount to expect someone to spend to be a first-class member of the network.
Just a reminder that Bitcoin adoption is currently growing in 3rd world countries, not 1st world.
For some reason 1st worlder are perfectly happy with WU, Paypal and their banks.
And in the 3rld world, your
daily wage might be only 2$. So keep that in mind.
price of tech:
bitcoin 2009 stats could easily have run on Raspberry Pi v1
bitcoin 2013 stats could easily have run on Raspberry Pi v1
bitcoin 2016 stats could easily have run on Raspberry Pi v1
raspberry Pi
v3 is several times faster, bigger. so natural growth of bitcoin can run on a Raspberry Pi
v3telecom industry have a 5 yarr plan
5G mobile network
Fibre optic land line
people change their computers on average ever 2-5 years
technology is not the issue.
bitcoin wont be "gigabyte blocks by midnight", instead it will be hundred of megabyts in DECADES
we are not going to jump to "one world currency" or "excell beyond visa" overnight. it will be a NATURAL scalable amount over DECADES.
we should not halt onchain scaling out of fear of onchain scaling.
thats like shooting self in foot intentionally purely out of fear one day you might shoot self in foot.
thats like purposefully walking into a car out of fear one day you might have a car accident.
instead we need to realise what is a safe way to do things and look how to look at what to do to stay safe.
EG if nodes have a 'speedtest' built in. they can flag what they can cope with.. which then can show what the network can cope with. and the network moves with what the majority of nodes can cope with. thus no worries of outscaling nodes. because the nodes are displaying the limits.
it takes away 3dev's being king to spoon feed what they "think" the world can cope with and instead the nodes control it.