Nope. Nodes don't mean anything.
summary of my post below for all the TL:DR people
dinofelis you are just talking about end user experience of just spnding coins. you have not talked about the integrity, security, consensus of bitcoins self regulation of protecting the coins.
by having diverse nodes and INDEPENDENT DEVS makes it less likely for corruption of the rules aswell as avoiding the physical location attack, the more diverse the nodes get
i think you need to learn about bitcoin consensus and the protocol, beyond just the end-user experience
You see, the problem is that you are introducing ill defined concepts about what "consensus" should be, like a political or philosophical goal or something ; "protecting the coins".
But there are only two kinds of agents in a crypto currency. There are the entities that use it. Whether they are exchanges, merchants, speculators, ...., they are people that want to use a monetary function of bitcoin, and *transact* (buy them, sell them, exchange them.... whatever) against value.
And then there are the miners: people building block chains. Miners are also users, because they do the mining to obtain coins, and sell them, or hold them and sell them later against something. But most users are not miners (contrary to what Satoshi had in mind).
These two sets of entities are what makes a crypto currency. The users transact against value, the miners make the block chain. The users need the miners to make the block chain, and put their transaction on it. The miners need the users to spend their fees and block rewards on.
And, essentially, that's it.
The entire crypto currency dynamics is a matter of the interaction of these two sets of entities: amongst themselves, and between one group and another.
Users need the block chain in order to "prove" their transactions to their counter party. Without your transaction on the block chain, you didn't prove your transaction and the counter party will not provide the market value. Users also need the block chain to prove their right to spend (if they are on the receiving side). And that's all they need. Users are entities, people, that want to transact tokens against value. That's why they are there. And they need a block chain to be able to prove their right to spend, and to prove their transactions. This is the only thing that gives "market value" to a token.
Miners make block chains for the users, and obtain tokens as block rewards and fees, that they also sell to users, to obtain the market value.
As such, miners need to communicate with users to get their transactions, and users need to communicate with miners, to get the block chain. This is all communication that is needed.
The phenomenon of consensus makes that users as well as miners agree upon a protocol of using the coins (of what are valid transactions) and of making the valid block chain. the consensus mechanism involves proof of work and a whole set of rules that tell people 1) when A block chain is valid and 2) when there are several valid block chains, which is the preferred one. The proof of work mechanism is such, that it costs a lot to make an alternative block chain, so if a miner makes a block chain, he has put a lot of investment in it. He would lose a lot of money if he were not trying to build blocks on the "best block chain". So you can accept that an active miner is always building on the best block chain around according to him.
So, as a miner, what do you need ? You need to have the best block chain, and quickly, to build blocks upon. You cannot afford learning late about the best block chain: you waste all your hash rate. A miner can only be successful if:
1) he learns quickly about the latest blocks on the best block chain
2) he divulges very quickly his OWN found blocks to other miners
3) he gets a good filled mem pool of user transactions
This is why a miner is fully motivated to have good network infrastructure, announce his own best block chain to everybody (and especially to other miners) and takes in user transactions.
A miner is the best source of block chain, and the ultimate destiny of transactions. There is no better source of block chain around. It is the *principal server* of the best block chain.
Of course, a miner also has all reasons to VERIFY the integrity of the blocks of his peer miners. If he mines upon INVALID blocks by peer miners, he is just wasting his hash rate. So miners have in general a strong incentive to adhere to the protocol: there is a strong mechanism of consensus amongst miners.
Now, what can users do ? If there is full consensus amongst miners, NOTHING. Users can just accept the single block chain that miners in full consensus, make. Users can download the block chain from miners, and like it, or not like it, but as there is no other block chain, they can't do bloody nothing, except not use that crypto any more.
So what do non-mining nodes mean in this respect ? Simply: nothing. In as much as the full non mining nodes on the network are in agreement with whatever protocol the miners use amongst themselves, they are just proxy servers of the main servers which are the nodes of the miners (the pool nodes in most cases) ; and in as much as they are not in agreement, they simply come to a halt. Because the miners, amongst themselves, make only one single block chain.
==> even if tomorrow, all miners would collude on a different protocol, say, they all agree upon not halving the block reward next time, all full nodes will come to a halt. The only thing that users can do, is to use a node that is in agreement with the new protocol of the miner consensus. And the only reason why miners might NOT do this, is that amongst themselves, there is a consensus mechanism at work, that would orphan blocks AMONGST MINERS. The first miner making a block with a non-regular block reward would get his block orphaned by *other miners*, unless they collude. And IF they collude, and implement this hard fork, and if this is the only block chain that is made, whether there are 10, 100 or 4000 non-mining nodes "protesting", there's nothing that they can do about it.
==> as long as miners are in consensus, non-mining nodes are at most proxy servers.
It becomes more interesting if there is dissidence amongst miners: if different miners use different protocols, and build TWO (or more) DIFFERENT block chains. Then, non-mining nodes can chose between the chains. But in the end, users will now have the choice between two chains. The miner community will have split in two communities, building two chains. The user can now chose WHICH block chain he is going to use. But nothing changed in the relationship between users, and THEIR preferred miner set, and their preferred block chain. Users will STILL communicate with the miners that correspond to their choice of block chain.
The set of full non-mining nodes will split into two different types: those that download and transmit chain A, and those that download and transmit chain B. But they are STILL just proxy servers of one or other block chain.
==> even in the case of miner dissidence, and the building of multiple block chains, full non mining nodes are still proxy servers of one of these block chains.
However, now, users can appreciate the different tokens on the different chains differently concerning their market value. Miners are sensitive to this, because miners earn tokens on the chain they are mining. So miners will take into account the user market value appreciation when they mine different block chains (different coins). This is the ultimate interaction by which users impose their will onto miners: by market value.
But in all of this, non mining nodes are just server proxies to miner nodes.
