So taking this to the conclusion...that there will NEVER be a solution between the various flavors of devs on
block size and other issues in the future....
What is the outcome? Bitcoin just fades away as those same entrenched whales simply move BTC to another coin to fight over?
No, you are wrong. There will be a solution eventually. Both sides will push their luck to the end but one of them will not be able to endure anymore and retreat at some point.
This will most likely to happen when transaction fees become 20-30$ average and there are 400-500k unconfirmed transactions on the blockschain.
When all the hopes are lost, when everybody starts to dump bitcoin, when bitcoin heads back to 200$, when WU realizes that he is losing his job and then out of nowhere... The solution will arrive.
We need to see the bottom first before we can jump to the moon again.
That's the thing crisis will force a compromise. Miners are happy with moderate rises in price as is happening now because they can continue profiting from their mining operations while the difficulty doesn't take a sharp increase.
As soon as the shit hits the fan and prices start to plunge miners will have a choice either exit the market or compromise and it doesn't take a genius to realize compromise is their only choice.