Hearn is definitely correct.
If you disagree, I suggest: get your head out of your arse and READ what he's saying:
https://medium.com/@octskyward/the-resolution-of-the-bitcoin-experiment-dabb30201f7#.9mmfs7o10REAL problems with Bitcoin community... thankfully this:
Still, all is not yet lost. Despite everything that has happened, in the past few weeks more members of the community have started picking things up from where I am putting them down. Where making an alternative to Core was once seen as renegade, there are now two more forks vying for attention (Bitcoin Classic and Bitcoin Unlimited). So far they’ve hit the same problems as XT but it’s possible a fresh set of faces could find a way to make progress.
I have read it, and while i do not agree with everything (there are some fact problems as well), i strongly agree with the philosophical issues he mentions: there should not be censorship AT ALL about discussing the future way (blocksize, fee "market") of Bitcoin. The mere fact, that some opinions were suppressed shows which side is the elitist control freak, and which side is not. Technically, this whole debate about nodes (and mining and decentralization) being unable to be hosted with 2/4/8 whatever >1MB blocks is false. If someone has problems running a node with 1MB blocks today, he should not run it. This is SJW cultural marxism in the form of bottlenecking the network because some people with crap internet, or cheap PC can not run a full node, or mine, or operate a company in bad environment, "so none shall run a better one".
Yes, life isn't fair, in some regions of the world you won't be able to run a mining operation 'cause of the slow internet connection. This is not different from the fact that you also won't run mining operation in areas where electricity is expensive, or it is a desert climate, but you shouldn't hamper the growth of the network, because it is "unfair", and you want the same amount of nodes in Kongo jungle as in The Netherlands, in the name of decentralization! Because small blockers just do that. They find out more and more elaborate, complex, short-mid term "solutions", in the name of "fair" decentralization. Why it is a problem, that only bitcoin users with good PC/NET capabilities (or the ones with actual technical know-how, and OMG enough money!!) running nodes? Or the network needs 1 "poor African desert tribal node" for every US/Belgian one??
The blocksize on my HDD doesn't matter for me (and i guess for a lot of people who run a node out of pure ideology). I can and will spend another 100-200$ for another few TB to store it, in exchange, the number of the network users can growth (yes, they get "free blockspace - gasp - on my expense!!), and all my bitcoins will go up 100-200$, am still in +. Or i can do it just because i want to be nice
There are i think 100 millions living with 10MB/s+ internet, and if only 1 in every 100.000 runs a node, it can keep up the decentralization. And yes, poor chinese miners and their Great Firewall. IDK! They mine there, because the state subsidizes electricity! It is a market distortion in the first place. Go move to Alaska, burn that cheap oil :-)
EDIT: Okay, i know the Hearn ragequit FUD was not good for the reputation, just wanted to point out the frustration about how political this whole debate became, and that we here may know "too much" to imagine a standard user's viewpoint. The needs of the "average user" is not only technical, they grasp ideas better (or only) than network security concepts burrowed under internal mailing lists. I have no chance to explain these to real life friends who are not hardcore bitcoiners reading forums 0-24, and all they can grasp from this debate is, as i have learned is: "space running out".
