Murky indeed- your statement about the extremes is true of course but not very practical. It doesn’t tell us much about influence without some measure of connectivity/flow routed by the nodes. The number of Knots nodes could be higher than 80% and not make a difference if the economic weight of the 20% was a lot more (as it almost certainly is). These types of measures give people either false hope or a reason to get the pitchforks out… because it confuses how the network really works (and has ALWAYS worked) without additional context.
Discussion
Thank you for providing this additional context
Of course. I’ve been trying to educate myself and others on the nuances recently:
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it does show that (imo) a meaningful percentage of network are unhappy with cores actions
even if doesn't have economic weight it signifys something
not disagreeing with your point on false hope just saying it signifies something
there's also not a good way to know how much economic weight the Knots users actually have
it's easy to assume something like "Well, major infrastructure providers haven't said they are switching to Knots, so all of these people must just be raspberry pi users LARPing as if they matter"
but (1) it's possible for someone major to switch without announcing it (2) it's possible that a lot of these Knots users run small businesses, and if so, that can quickly add up to a significant amount of economic weight
I don't think there's a good way to know but there's another factor to consider: the Knots people are running a couple thousand nodes, and even if they only represent 10% of the people upset with Core, that means tens of thousands of people are now part of a vocal minority.
If this minority proves to be persistent, people who *do* have economic weight will be economically incentivized to serve that community and advertise to them, and part of their messaging could be "Look, we're running Knots too! Support us by buying our shirts & hats & VPSs and whatnot!"
So even if the majority of these people *are* LARPers, and even if their hobby nodes are meaningless by themselves, it can result in people who do have economic weight joining that community for self-interested reasons -- and then suddenly there *is* economic weight in that community.
yeah hundred percent
it gives people who have a different opinion than the core devs assurance they're not alone. 'virtue signalling' is not the sledge some people think it is...
also tether ramping up mining with ocean, isn't the easiest way to use the datum thing to run knots? that will be interesting
True. I hope they learn how to actually make their voice matter (plug in ASIC, use the node, route lightning…)