while thinking short term some economic decisions might sounds better, while they are bad long term for everyone. we already have many examples of this, not just in bitcoin. this is just one more example. soft forks are still forks, changing bitcoin, changing the underlying field everybody plays on. and many of these made possible and "economically viable by soft forks".

if you showed some computer case to someone from middle-ages, they would melt it for metal. sometimes people can't understand if what they do is the best economic decision. and we have one bitcoin. we can't afford experimenting with soft forks, changing consensus. but we can afford experimenting with 100 different node implementations with different opinions. after all, nodes are a software talking in behalf of the bitcoin users. and like in any free speech society, people can decide to share information or not, or when. filters matter because they work. after all, not all rules in a society are laws. not all rules in bitcoin network are consensus.