Re: Stop adding features to Bitcoin that don't facilitate its use as electronic cash
Bitcoin's central purpose was the evasion of government oversight into transactions.
Not just government, but commercial entities as well. Companies like card providers and commercial banks hold tremendous power in the fiat world. The idea is that no one is in a position to block or reverse a transaction, no one can freeze or confiscate funds. That's what we generally refer to as 'censorship resistant'.
Yes, Bitcoin was meant to (but really doesn't) do that too
It does when people use it correctly and don't hand control of their funds over to third parties. But since lots of people leave their BTC in the custody of exchanges and webwallets, they can (and often do) have their funds frozen or stolen.
Much in the same way that speculation is one of the driving forces behind Bitcoin not being used as a currency, peoples' preferred method of speculation, where they gamble on exchanges, introduces weaknesses and vulnerabilities to an otherwise robust system.
The idea was to eliminate middlemen to increase security, but speculators seem to have it backwards and deliberately introduce middlemen to eliminate security.
