I think you're making some good points regarding the fearmongering on both sides, but I think the 2X hardfork is a bit more complicated due to a number of factors.
The 2X agreement (NYA), which is backed by many miners, businesses and most of the major exchanges, as they are the ones that will benefit the most from the lower fees and faster confirmation times.
The major players want the 2X increase badly because the fees are hitting their bottom line big time! If the miners and exchanges get together, they can list the 2X chain as the main bitcoin chain and the other side won't be able to do a damn thing.
I don't think Miners will give up $300k per day revenue that easily.
For Bitcoin, any and all decisions must be made by the following Parties:
I don't see that much shifting away from Bitcoin.
Ok, but miners and merchants have massive business costs and users don't. So, using this logic, why do users get a say when they can leave and use something else anytime they wish, while miners can't just switch from mining as they would incur big losses?
It would seem to me that the miners should have the biggest say due to their monetary investments in mining infrastructure.
Why can't we all just switch to a better, faster, cheaper, private coin that has actual governance that solved the entire block size debate in a matter of hours.
I know we've discussed this before, but I'll throw out a new angle for the discussion. Perhaps the other methods are not actually superior simply because they are not known by the general public. I get asked about bitcoin just about every day from people I know, and then from people who just heard I knew something about it. I have never once, ever, not one time, been asked about another coin outside of crypto based websites. In fact, I know some very intelligent people who are into bitcoin sort of on the side, and even those people didn't know a coin market this big even existed outside of bitcoin.
There may very well be a better search algorithm than google's, but you'd spend most of your life trying to convince even a few people that it's better than google.....just because of their dominance. Same way iphones are built on technology that Android phones have had for many years in some cases, yet they outsell the other phones even when the reviews are completely negative.
Branding and brand awareness play a significant role in people's sentiment toward a product. You will hear things like: "Well I just like how easy it is to get a bitcoin wallet and get started" - Even if they are incorrect, it will be nearly impossible to convince someone that a coin they have never heard of is worth moving their finances into. People are confused enough about BTC and BCH.....now add BCG....more confusion, and in confusion, people revert back to the last know good configuration....bitcoin.
Your reasons make me love Dash even more. Dash is doing everything right (https://www.dashforcenews.com/). All of the intelligent people will eventually get out of BTC. The idiots will certainly get burnt. Miners hate BTC and merchants don't really like it either. Amazon will never accept BTC because even if Amazon wanted to, BTC is technically incapable of Amazon integration. Amazon has 600 TX/s
All you need is to do research.Eventually smart money will flee BTC. Merchant adoption isn't going anywhere for BTC and Eastern Europe, Africa, Japan and south Korea will be more receptive for alt-coins.
I agree. And the world does move and adapt more quickly than it seems like it used to. I KNEW when I was younger that Marijuana would NEVER be legal for recreation in the US during my lifetime. Everyone KNEW it....but he were are. Knowledge spreads so much faster these days, and people are looking for ways to enrich their lives in a non classical model if possible. Also, the marijuana example is regional and a country to country thing, and controlled.....this digital currency thing is going to be a hard bull for the clown to put back in the cage.
Your claim is especially true in crypto-space. A month in stock market is like a day in crypto. Tides will change in a matter of years. I do believe that there is a near 100% possibility of another financial crisis before the End of Trump presidency (poor guy. most of it isn't even his fault).
An even like this will drive many into cryptos. The prices will go up like gold. The increased Tx volume will be very bad for BTC. The forks will be negatively affected by carrying Bitcoin brand and alt-coins will rise.All of this will happen over the course of few months. There will be people who'd still treat BTC as a store of value. But dominance will fall. I mean BTC doesn't sponsor anything. You can't build a business on top of it (like NEM, ETH, FCT,SYS,LBRY, etc)
Above all the reasons for block size limit makes me torn between conspiracy accusations and cringe/apathy towards the small blocks advocates. They make ZERO business sense. One more reason to love Dash. 400MB and beyond.
For Users, the transaction volume will follow their level of actions or usage. It hasn't gone down. If so they all would have already switched to DASH or LTC with instant transaction. But they didn't. Why? It weren't the users who asked for BCH....and they got free money and now what? BCH is less than 12% of BTC. Not taking over the network effect.
If Miners had the biggest say, Bitcoin wouldn't be Bitcoin. I believe the merchants and users have the greater degree of say.
It's not miners or users; it's the first mover advantage, nostalgia and sentiment. People stick with what is familiar. BTC is the posterchild for entire blockchain. Too many zealots who are preaching the greatness of BTC etc. But when it comes to the developing nations (especially Africa and Eastern Europe) alt-coins have a great chance. https://www.dashforcenews.com/dash-teams-operate-5-different-african-countries-dedicated-continent-wide-adoption/
I also think Japan will be a good ground for alt-coins and we'll see BTC market share shrink in Japan in the future.
Bitcoin does have massive infrastructure in place, but a few of the major alts are also benefiting greatly from this infrastructure. For example, the amount of altcoin-supporting Bitcoin ATMs is growing with each passing month:
https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@techwizardry/plenty-of-new-bitcoin-and-altcoin-atms-dash-ether-litecoin-come-online-in-september
Yes, firs mover advantage gave Bitcoin its current massive network effect unbeatable by any other coin.
There will always be other coins. Yes. For sure.
As discussed its first mover advantage. Most people outside of the world of crypto have heard of nothing but Bitcoin. They are unaware of the 900+ alt coins out there. Granted most are just clones of bitcoin anyway, but the point is, if we really want crypto to reach mass adoption we need to stop forking (or creating alt coins) every time we see a slight advantage. If I created a rival to Visa with fractionally lower fees, or slightly faster transactions, no one would care. Its all about the network effect and the name.
If you want crypto to succeed, back bitcoin. Improvements can come later.
Damn right ma'am! Upvoted your comment!
Miners and Nodes literally do make the rules. If either stops doing what they are doing, there is no network anymore, it all ceases to exist.