Maybe I’m retarded but I fail to see this PR being a fatal blow? Is bitcoin really that fragile? If you don’t like it can’t you simply continue to run the version of core before the merge or run Bitcoin knots? If you are unsure or like the change you run the new version. If it causes more usage of blockspace isn’t that good for miners and fee market? If it doesn’t was it really as big as an issue as everyone thought?
Discussion
The question is, it good for the user ?
Agree but what is good for the user is up to each individual user not always the same.
Exactly, so why remove the option from the user ?
They can’t because you don’t have to run their update.
It takes a long time for a new user to get a node up and running, then learn what OP_RETURN is, and finally figure out they need to downgrade to an older version to be able to choose.
So this is about new users not current users?
No it’s an ideological debate.
It's largely about new users because it's about underinformed users.
But its not simply a matter of downgrading version. If you do that, you miss out on future updates and whatever features and bugfixes they have. That's not a realistic option.
So core didn't come with a pick and choose option. I thought that was just my own lack of technical ability. That alone should have been a clear indication to every node runner that core was never a true consensus tech. In which case, along with the majority of developers working on that one same project, which would naturally tend toward centralization, none of this should be a surprise. Or supported.
If a pick and choose ability exists (in any software), I'm not aware if it, but also I am quite limited by my own lack of technical ability. I have asked on nostr for how to do that in the past, and got no answers, so I'm pretty confident its not a thing. I think your assessment is correct - Core is antithetical to the Bitcoin ethos.
I would legitimately pay a dev to monitor #asknostr to answer in depth technical questions. I would bet more sats than that that a lot of other people would too.
Agreed. At the very least, that's the kind of thing that we need to be zapping.
i try sometimes but don’t know too much about
You could create a bot that would do this. Obviously the database would be rather large, but it seems like a better solution than having a dev on call 24/7.
There could be an option to speak to a qualified individual and you could pay that person per session or per question. Choosing the latter option would ping an established list of knowledgeable people, so it wouldn’t be up to just one person to monitor the hashtag.
Not fatal to Bitcoin at all, nowhere close to it. Fatal to Core maybe. The key issue is the consideration for user choice, and Core is trying to limit choice for its users, so like you said, conscientious users will just switch. The fact that they are silencing debate and claiming that most bitcoiner voices don't matter to the discussion, and that ethics doesn't matter to the discussion, shows that their heads are not in the right place. I would not use mission critical software from people who are that arrogant. So the Core devs are rightfully getting a lot of scrutiny.
I agree with all your points and am not defending core. I was more thinking of posts I’ve seen where ppl say things like it turns bitcoin into a worthless altcoin.
Yeah completely agree, that's not true at all, but it may lean sightly in that direction if a lot of users unknowingly put this code into play, or at least that's their fear.
In truth it might even be beneficial from a practical point of view. I'm still trying to learn more about the exact technicals and what economic incentives surround them, but it looks like the proposed change would decrease spam slightly in the long run, or make it more hardware space efficient. Transactors still have to pay per byte of OP_RETURN data, so incentives are still gonna be relatively tame after this.
But because these changes can have a significant impact like that, because they are so consequential, and because the Core team obviously thinks it's consequential, then it is a legit topic for debate! So the people making claims about turning it into a shitcoin are either being hyperbolic, assuming too much, or missing the real point that this is worth considering and debating amongst bitcoiners and the Core team are being intellectually dishonest.
