Unless you're on dialup, you'll never have problems staying up to date. Keep in mind the first few years we were nowehere near filling blocks, which means the chain grew less than it could have. nowadays we are closer to saturation, so growth is a lot more linear.
As far as bootstrapping goes, it's insane to download the Whole thing from scratch through the core client. Look for a bootstrap torrent, and sync from there. yes, first start will be slow, but it won't take nearly as long.
All this said, nobody's ever said you need to run a full node. Wallets like Electrum, especially if combined with Trezor or other hardware wallets, are safe enough--indeed more in some cases--than running a full node.
there is no need to run a full node, and not doing so won't make you anybody's slave.
If you want core and contribute, you have more studying to do, because you simply havn't learnt enough yet to be useful.
Thanks for the reply.
Oh yes, lots of studying to be had, and learning on this constantly, so thanks!
So, regarding bootstrapping, actually it's hardly any faster than downloading through the client- this is through my personal experience. Which is really what annoyed me about it all. My Core client has been "processing blocks" for over two days now via bootstrap, it hit 30% and basically stuck at the same speed, even worse, than previously on my old drive through traditional method.
Of course I don't have to run a full node. But imagine if everyone thought this way- "why bother running a full node, I can just grab an Electrum wallet and feed through that." Well, I bet most people do go this route, but as stated in my original post, its better and safer to have the blockchain locally, given the option.
As far as "learning enough to be useful", not sure what you mean by this statement. Even newcomers can be usefull by providing nodes to the community via Core to assist with transaction verifications, even though we can't mine anymore.
I agree there is no need to run a full node, which is really the crux of this thread. Its unfortunate and discouraging, really, that those of us who do are pretty much SOL now. We should be encouraging nodes, but the current state has made it an impossibility to start from scratch, bootstrap or otherwise.