You need consensus from several parties for people to follow your HF.
is that not tautological though? "people will agree with you, but only if they agree to it"
any miner can "activate" or "lock in" a hard fork, such expressions arguably only serve as rhetorical devices, i.e.
- bitcoin devs looking to reach consensus with users can use these sorts of words to make it sound powerful / empowering, to breed confidence
- a hostile fork could equally use such language to scare users into believing there's no escape from this strong, unstoppable force
in other words, it's marketing/PR when anyone does it really, or at least it's become that way
as everyone says though, a miner unilaterally hard forking may find themselves mining an increasingly lonely blockchain.
Everyone will try to use their weapons to persuade each other. From their respective POVs:
Miners: "We have the most hasrate, join us or you will be transacting upon a less secure blockchain."
Devs: "We are the most technically competent developers, join us or you will be transacting over less secure code."
Exchanges: "We have the most liquidity, join us or you will not be able to buy/sell."
Hodlers: "We have the most funds, join us or we will rekt your shitcoin by dumping our split shares into your fake Bitcoin."
And so follows.
The fact that is so incredibly complex that somehow everyone agrees mutually makes Bitcoin a very solid protocol, probably immutable by now and thus valuable for anyone wanting to park money in there.