Bitcoin didn’t actually “change”, like the poster’s context of “change”. Or maybe I misunderstood?
What did you understand in the context of “change”? A consensus change such as 21M coins that would result in a hard fork? A change like SegWit and Taproot that would result in a soft fork?
The poster mentioned change as in change of POW, “or some better model”.
Change the POW algorithm, the network’s security breaks down. Everything about it breaks down, it’s laughable to consider thinking about that kind of “change”.
It's been said by everyone and I also agree that PoW is the greatest choice and that this mechanism shouldn't be changed by force.
But we can't be sure for any other innovative ideas, though.
Are you still saying that changing POW into some other “innovative idea” would be a good idea for Bitcoin? How Hashcash was implemented as POW in Bitcoin is the greatest break-through/“discovery” for decentralized, censorhip-resistant protocols, and the missing piece for achieving Nakamoto Consensus.