It’s true that users control the nodes, but core devs control bitcoin core and we have no other software options right now. It’s essentially a software monopoly.

And if we being honest, we’ll admit that most users don’t really know what’s in the version they install. I just hope users stay vigilant. It seems to me that users are too trusting in this area.

It’s funny that you mentioned the blocksize wars. You do realize that the UASF was written and promoted by core devs to avoid being “fired” by the big blockers, right?

It was framed as a war between users and big commercial interests, but it was actually a war between core devs and big commercial interests. I’m glad the core devs won. They were correct. But we can’t fool ourselves and say that they didn’t wield power and it was all users. Nobody knows how many users were ready to support the UASF because the miners capitulated before the deadline.

The blocksize wars are framed as a big win by users but you can see that’s really not the case. All we know is that miners do not control the network. We don’t know if the core devs do because this has never been tested.