When you ransom the BTC Protocol to advantageously position patented products.
I don't think I understand. Can you give an example -- actual or hypothetical -- of such ransoming?
Patenting hardware and make sure the Protocol is biased towards that hardware.
Patenting some 2nd layer solution and position the protocol to be biased towards that solution.
I suppose this is a normal economic game in open protocol development and there is no easy way to clear the fog on this. In the end, users will vote with their money anyway. But I expect these problems in the future. I have no idea if they are here yet.
I've been swimming on those waters since before the turn of the millennium. Other protocols deal with such issues just fine. As will this one.
This time will come once the small groups here start thinking big again as Satoshi wanted them to do.
The game has started, the rules are mostly clear. Every group wants most power and share. Only collusion of some and the latent repulsion forces will make it real big.
This repulsion power has done a great job already.
It has lead us from Singularity Satoshi , 3 people , hackers, libertarian, silk roaders, gamblers, currency looser,...to bankers, inverstors and big mearchants. Good, but not enough yet.
The original code was split into miners, validators, wallets,...?
The next level might split dev teams, implementations, ideas, layers - not enough yet.
As long as security and adoption stays up, we as single buddys can only try shortcutting time or drama inserting. It might be also fine sit back and relax. Our choice...