as for lauda's account of the 2x part.. either lauda is dumb or he is part of it..
2x was always a bait and switch.. bait the community with a chance of 2x by getting the community to naively accept segwit first using the bait of segwit2x.. then switch back to trying to get people to hate the 2x part.. even though the community only accepted segwit recently due to the agreement of the 2x being part of the deal
But the Segwit2x agreement didn't involve users/the community. It just involved a bunch of VC-backed companies, many who have business models that are threatened by transaction fees replacing block subsidy. They'd prefer to increase the costs to run nodes and enter the mining sector -- due to propagation/bandwidth costs -- in order to reduce transactions costs. That way, transaction fees won't eat up all of their revenue.
Now, I'm sympathetic to that from their business perspective, but not to the point where it should affect my money. They should adapt to Bitcoin, not the other way around.
if the community was so strongly desiring just segwit it would have activated by christmas2016.. rather than lingering at 25-30%
That wasn't up to the community. Only miners had any say at that point.