If you send via your own node then you have far better privacy. If you're using someone else's node for anything, then it would be trivial to link that IP with the addresses being watched.
Discussion
Correct, but that doesn't give you any power over the protocol.
People sending bitcoin have no power over the protocol, only those receiving have any power.
Nodes dictate the network, whatever version the majority are running enforces those rules on the network.
Bitcoin is not a democracy. If "the majority" of nodes get to decide what the bitcoin protocol is then a government could just spin up a a couple million nodes and change the 21 million hard cap. That isn't how it works.
The rolling set of nodes that *verify bitcoin received in exchange for something else* have 100% of the hard power over the protocol rules.
You need to be producing/trading something of value in exchange for bitcoin in order for your act of transaction verification to have an impact on the network. If the bitcoin you receive does not comply with your version of the protocol then verification fails and you stop providing economic value to whoever sent you the "bitcoin". The rolling set of people doing this determine what the protocol is.
Nope. The nodes enforce the code on the miners. If the nodes decided they wanted a proof of stake network (which would be stupid) the miners would be forced to switch hardware. The majority of nodes enforce the network. Satoshi mentioned this in the early writings. You can run whatever versions of BTC you want.
If that were true, a bad actor could simply spin up some nodes and print free bitcoin.
No because nobody would follow that chain. He would be spinning up nodes on his own with no miners.
Exactly, and which chain to miners follow? The one which has demand for coins.
And which coins are in demand? Those which can be traded for something other than bitcoin.
And who decides what fork is valid bitcoin? Those who have something to trade for it.
Read my original comment that you disagreed with more carefully.
Anyone can fork bitcoin and many have. Nobody is stopping a fork and nobody needs to follow that fork. My node enforces the rules of the network I want. Miners will mine the most economically viable fork. All the interests align. The most economically efficient version wins. Miners don't mine out of charity and node runners don't run nodes that don't align with their interest.
Correct.