It looks to me like a sizable portion of the mining community is trying hard now to block things like the Lightning Network from taking hold, to keep TX on-chain (and thus maximizing fee revenue to the miners). Propaganda, FUD, strongarm tactics - they are going to do what they can to maintain their monopoly, as it were, over bitcoin TX fees.

The problem with this approach is not just that it stifles bitcoin. It's that the real competition is not Core or the LN. They are trying to make bitcoin grow and succeed. The real competition is the thousand altcoins that offer cheaper fees if the mining community has its way. And it is naive to imagine that people won't migrate to the major alts if this continues. With the rise in Dash, Ethereum and Monero recently I think it may already be starting, and would be even further along if it were not for the SEC/ETF excitement.

If the miners won't come to their senses, my hope is that they make their BU power-grab soon, and are crushed by the market as they are left mining near-worthless coins until enough miners defect back to bitcoin to cause the BU altcoin to evaporate once its chain is surpassed. Unfortunately one downside I foresee is a lot of miner bankruptcies and further centralization of mining, but that is certain to happen in the "tyranny of the majority" Bitcoin Unlimited model as well. (Because their ability to vary things like blocksize will lead to dominant miners choosing parameters that cannot be met by marginal miners, driving them out of business in one long game of survivor.)

TL/DR: I'm bullish in the very short-term because of the ETF, but gosh I wish there was a Dash ETF in the works. Because I think we are gonna need it.