What matters per the Bitcoin design is that there are hashing nodes, period. The actual number of nodes, who they are, or where they are located, can't be determined for sure.
Unless they are actually complete block generating network nodes they are 1. not producing blocks and securing the network via hash power (absolutely necessary, or the network dies) 2. not investing time and energy in order to come up with said blocks, which means there is no built in economic incentive to protect the chain in order to earn compensation 3. For this reason much easier to reproduce as "sock puppets" to make the network either look more secure or like it has a lot of users voting with what client they use.
Satoshi was clear on this. 1-IP-One-Vote is to be avoided. Hash power is what counts, as even "full nodes" are dependant on it. This is also why network nodes (ie "miners") had to be onboard with both forks to some degree in order for them to go through and why Bitcoin Cash is a 'minority' fork, while Bitcoin ("Core") SL is the 'majority' fork.
Btw SegWit doesn't really solve the issue of scaling. If the goal is to scale on chain, neither does Lightning Network. But LN helps to scale off chain, keeping on chain transactions minimal with several tradeoffs. (which in the end might be worth it)
The split however was over community issues primarily, or else the debate of the technical differences would still have continued inside of the original community.