I’d be happy without the hard forks. Those turn me off. They are a consensus mechanism outside of the protocol, so lots of social surface area for attack once monero becomes relevant.
Discussion
Fair enough.
Hard forks allow Monero to quickly adapt which has it's advantages/disadvantages (just look at how contentious even softforks are for Bitcoin - both good and bad - good because it stops hasty changes- bad because it becomes gridlocked).
To be fair there are social attack surfaces with Bitcoin it just works in the opposite direction (obstructing beneficial changes)
If there was a very contentious issue the network would just end up forking (just like what happened with Monero from Bytecoin) just like any other FOSS. It requires users voluntarily participating in the network to begin with. You can also swap your coins away (voting with your wallet) for something else that more aligns with your preferences and no one can stop you.
1. I agree with all your points
2. I think hardforks are worst than all of those. If you need everyone to agree on something, then you don’t need a consensus protocol.
Sorry, not sure I follow what you mean by point 2...
i.e. any number of Bitcoin users could want to have smaller or larger blocks (I see this all the time), but current state is satisfactory enough to be mostly in agreement (it would seem by definition if they are still using it)
Same applies to Monero afaict. Users don't have to agree on every single detail to be in consensus just general agreement.
Unless I misunderstood what you mean.
Yes, everyone agrees on the “terms” of the protocol when they opt in. But that’s basically it. Then consensus happens *because* of protocol incentives.
On monero, and everywhere else, a hardfork is renewed opt in with everyone. And in monero you keep doing it over and over again. Agreeing on hardforks is a consensus mechanism that supersedes protocol incentives. Voting is like a hardfork. It’s not a consensus mechanism. People have decided *before* voting, and there are many reasons on why people vote the way they do.
Hard forks work for now because it’s a community. But money cannot be a community aggregator.
I see what you're saying now and I think those are all valid points to bring up.
Even if Monero network is voluntary, and like-minded users can fork away and/or swap away, there is a cost in network size/mind-share/value etc. that Bitcoin doesn't incur because it doesn't hardfork
I think the trade-offs make sense for each project and what is prioritized. For example, if there were softforks with Monero it's privacy would be constantly reduced. There would be many different privacy pools for each version not a unified set. Another example is the adaptability necessary to keep up with privacy tech vs surveillance tech - without that we probably wouldn't have RingCT, bulletproofs, dandelion, enforced standard ring size (uniformity = better privacy), increasing ring sizes, and now FCMP.
I personally believe neither Bitcoin nor Monero will usurp fiat on white markets and become popular money for the masses. In my view, these things will continue to grow to a certain share of people around the globe, but will always be relatively niche (freedom/sovereignty is niche)
If one values the properties of Bitcoin over that I can easily understand why. It does have it's own unique advantages over Monero and vice versa.
I completely understand this view.
But when technology exists in a changing context, what would you do?
Hardforks are a less-bad solution than premature ossification.