Segwit does not mess around with either in a dangerous sense which is what you're referring to.
I believe Bitcoin has a fundamental flaw, and that flaw is never addressed, so all these implementations are just a workaround that flaw.
The flaw is that the nodes are not incentivized, and all money goes to a centralized miner cartel.
Now because of this the number of nodes are shrinking, and you need to artificially keep the computational resources low (including blocksize) in order to satisfy current nodes. It's just horrible.
And because the block capacity is small, new users will hardly join bitcoin, and slowly bitcoin will fade away, due to more competitive altcoins.
It's a vicious cycle, just as the saying said: every creation has it's seed of destruction built inside it. Bitcoin's flaw will eventually destroy it.
Now instead of changing the protocol so that a portion of the reward goes to the nodes, we are cornered, and our hands are tied, and watch bitcoin die slowly.
Of course
changing the protocol is dangerous, as you said, I am not doubting that. But
not changing it will also destroy bitcoin.
So it looks like satoshi was not a genius after all, he was a good inventor, but he missed a fundamental flaw, and that will guarantee bitcoin's destruction eventually
- So instead of giving a % of the block reward to the nodes, we rely on their altruism to keep running expensive servers for free, and give all the money to a centralized mining cartel
- Furthermore we give them transaction fees too? What is the point of TX fees, if the miners already get money from the block reward? I believe TX should be free or very low cost, because the miners are already getting income from the block reward until 2120 or something. And use the ban feature to ban spamming or DDOS nodes.
- Then we need hacks and half baked cakes like Segwit to sort of increase the block capacity, and not disturb nodes so much. Which would not be a problem, if they had an income stream, and not have to pay the server costs from their own pockets
So to wrap it up, Bitcoin is not the NR. 1 currency, it may be here in the future like a ghost haunting us, but the inability to fix the fundamental issue, will guarantee that something better will take it's place eventually.
Maybe BTC will remain as a reserve system for the other cryptocurrencies, that they will peg themselves to via offchains, but it will never go mainsteam, and it will never be the
P2P Electronic Cash System that satoshi envisioned.
At best it will be like an electronic Gold. At worst, it will just fade away.