I don't see how politics can stay out of it when it comes to consensus rules: Bitcoin is only trustless and decentralized when consensus is reached, and it seems to me we're currently in the midst of a consensus-finding process.

That being said, is BIP-444 going to limit in any way anyone's ability to spend, receive, and hold sats? You've highlighted all the restricting sounding words, yet they do not seem to invalidate Bitcoin's use cases to me.

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Well, it weaponises CSAM. If its put on chain, it could initiate a re-org. During a re-org there's opportunity for a double spend attack.

Valid concern, but it seems related to the activation strategy (reactive path instead of a simply proactive one) more than to the data carrier limitations proposed by the BIP.

I personally feel that a good way of thinking about these limitations is: if these had been in place since the very first time Satoshi released Bitcoin, would Bitcoin had been unnecessarily limited and would it have failed? (the answer can also be yes)