the bitcoin network is really controlled by the economic majority. Thats kind of what cant be evil is about, an attempt to replicate that type of thinking into a corporate structure to fail-safe it. Not even miners can fork the protocol if no full nodes nor users like the change.
You are aware of the Eyal and Sirer paper on this, right? As I understant, a majority coalition of miners
can force users to change the protocol, by sabotaging the "orthodox" chain. Then it would be in the interest of uses and any "orthodox" miners to upgrade to the protocol chosen by the cartel.
If the change is minor (e.g., "postpone the next reward halving to 2018"), most bitcoin users will not mind. Only ideological purists will be upset, but all they could do is create yet another fork, with a PoW that cannot be mined by the current equipment. But then no orthodox miners could mine this new "true bitcoin reborn" chain either, so it would start out with a minuscule CPU-based network.
outside of some disagreement that sidechains create more risk than they remove (I say they remove risk, because bitcoin is exposed to offchain risk & monetary shocks from eg mtgoxings, such that sidechains are a clear improvement over offchain economically)
What would prevent a sidechain from being a scam? Sidechains will not be cleared, audited, or reulated, by Blockstream or anyone else. Their protocols cannot be constrained in any significant way, without destroying their presumed merits. Or is there anything in the whitepaper and other literature that I have missed?