I see myself fucking up something and sending it to a wrong adress or something and lose my whole life-savings. 20bc
Considering what's already happened on Cryptsy and Mt. Gox, I'd say that keeping it on the exchange is about a million times riskier than just sending out to a safer wallet at any time at all, not just near forks. Sending it to the wrong address has happened but it's a negligible risk if you triple check.
It's not clear if you get your money if you are on exchange?
It's not clear because it's essentially the exchange's decision. Coinbase, for example, has already said that they will not be giving their customers the Bitcoin Cash/UAHF coins and that their users should withdraw if they want those.
It's important to understand that when storing coins in an exchange the exchange is holding them for you, and all you have is a promise that you'll get them back. That promise didn't include "in the case of any chain splits, we'll give you all of the different coins through a lovely interface and you can do what you like with them". So to avoid shady or confusing activity from exchanges, you should withdraw.
Why would they want to fork off if they weren't going to succeed?
Because they'd like to see a chain with larger blocks
This is not an explanation
Pretty sure it is.
What is the purpose of seeing Bitcoin with larger blocks if no one is going to use it anyway?
Anyone could create a fork of BTC. Anyone can also create an altcoin. Does that mean that the
995 coins listed on coinmarketcap are all going to become the biggest cryptocurrency?