Quote from: danda on November 01, 2018, 04:47:10 PM

Under section 2 I think you should mention that mining pools give pool operators enormous leverage/power when it comes to signaling for soft/hard forks.

Basically, a whole bunch of miners are pointing hash power at the pool. On their own, the miners might never upgrade or signal at all (thus preserving status quo) or might go in different directions like cats. But the pool op can make one little change and suddenly all that hash power is signalling for whatever op wants. Many/most miners do not care enough to switch to another pool as they are driven by profit incentive and changing to another pool requires work/effort.

It's kind of like if I sign up with an insurance company for insurance, but hidden in the fine print is that the insurance company will vote on my behalf in upcoming government elections, so long as I continue as a customer.

Exactly! I really like your analogy too. I think it is something we should all be concerned about, and to find technical solutions to fix it. Mine is just one approach, I am sure there are other approaches.