We have power division well structured in bitcoin, that is unlikely to happen. Bitcoin is not like a private central bank.
It is administered publicly by nodes voting in a voluntary matter, while you also have the expertise of the oligarchs who hold the majority of bitcoins steering it in the right direction.
It's their money, they have invested in it, of course they want the best to succeed for bitcoin, it's not altruism, it's greed, but it works, and bitcoin is 10 billion thanks to that.
So there are 2 major forces, in fact even 3 (if there is separation between miners & oligarchs): nodes, miners & oligarchs.
And you also have minor forces like : bitcoin media & bitcoin developers who hold less power and only influence indirectly.
Hardly a centralized system
atleast you are now using words like
majority
public
and when talking about oligarchs you are using plural rather then singular.
lets see how long this lasts before you flip flop like carlton does.
also the devs dont hold the majority of coins. most devs have proven to be paid in fiat.
however, the general mindset of everyone: miners, pools, users and devs.
is that they should not want to screw with the network and lose their funds, big or small.
thus all should compromise to get to a majority agreement of the rules to all get the features they all want.
now if carlton drivels on about 2mb is bad. then he needs to read his blockstreams own desire of 4mb. which they deem safe
so while realbitcoin has had a realization:
2mb was the compromise and general agreement as of last year.(no need to bring up 8mb, 32mb, 100mb.. that debate died last year)
then this year blockstream vetoed and instead wanted 1mb base 4mb weight. refusing 2mb
so the logical compromise to get a consensus again is 2mb base 4mb weight. thus everyone gets what they want
and the bloat is within acceptable boundaries everyone agrees with.
then all the groups can simply concentrate on getting to this consensus where everyone is happy.
and then let the consensus activate when:
1) devs have coded, reviewed, tested and implemented a node with such.
2) nodes to then flag and attain a 95% acceptance of the nodes network wanting it. safe risk of orphans(under 5%)
3) followed by a grace period to reduce risk of orphans.
4) mining pools then review and implement theirs,
5) mining pools flag their blocks to show their acceptance after seeing the nodes acceptance, upto 95%
-- while (3)-(5) user nodes will be over 95% to even further reduce orphan risk).
6) mining pools still give themselves a grace period to reduce the minority orphans..
-- while (3)-(6) user nodes will be WELL over 95%, while (6) mining pools will be WELL over 95%to even further reduce orphan risk).
7) to eventually activate the rules.
-- and even then with the rules active. miners are not forced to only make blocks over 1mb
so the question is.
do you agree that if there is actual consensus. the network should grow? (with no --oppose-rule banning trick(intentional split))
or
do you prefer corporate dictatorship to avoid bitcoins main security feature(consensus), and cause every rule change to be a intentional split