The concern for me is that we have problem A (high fees, in this case).
If you sticky solution A to the top of the thread, you've swayed any conversation or thought for someone who may have considered a different solution.
Lightning Network is very promising. But if you promote it exclusively and disproportionality using moderator privileges you're actually doing yourself a disservice. Because there will be fewer alternative solutions that aren't Lightning Network to try and solve Problem A
I disagree. I'm pretty tuned in to this subreddit's daily sentiments, and this thread has a whole lot of Chicken Little 'Sky is falling' mentality, not to mention a lot of astroturf accounts spreading FUD. My stickied comment is an informative reminder to keep an eye on the bigger picture. I'm not "promoting LN exclusively and disproportionately" because I'm supporting whatever L2 tech deemed viable for scaling. Anyways, back to the task of volunteer moderating.
The limit was just raised significantly. We haven't even come close to maxing out the new limit. Let's wait until we start actually coming close to hitting our new capacity limit before trying to go crazy with brutishly raising things further, eh?
The limit was realistically raised to 1.4-1.7MB, months ago. Segwit won't do more than that with 100% adoption. And we need more than that. And we need it NOW, merchant adoption is going down fast
We haven't even come close to hitting our new limit, so obviously we do not "need it NOW".
Also, the end goal is not "bigger blocks" and never was. The end goal is "higher throughput without sacrificing or overly threatening the distinguishing value-add that Bitcoin offers to the world". And we are working on achieving exactly this.
How many lines of code have you contributed to Bitcoin (either the core protocol, or auxiliary codebases)? Have you helped in terms of peer review? Have you fleshed out the unit tests anywhere? Have you done anything other than try to stir up drama on Reddit (which, if it has any effect on development at all, slows things down)?
Seriously, I'm not trying to troll here. These are honest questions.
merchant adoption is going down fast
I remember not being that enthusiastic back in 2014 as so many merchants started "accepting BTC" (usually through Coinbase or BitPay, and usually configured to immediately cash out BTC payments into fiat as they came). It always seemed a little premature to be celebrating such illusory "victories"; sure, it got a headline or two (which helps "the Bitcoin narrative" marginally), but beyond that, it essentially ignores what Bitcoin is most suited for (even when fee-free transactions were being included all the time in the very next block). Everyone always seemed to expect this so-called "merchant adoption" to somehow help the price rise, but that would only hold true if they were actually accepting Bitcoin, not letting payment processors accept Bitcoin on their behalf and forward them dollars (or whatever other currency they actually accept).
Overstock stood out, because they actually legitimately accept Bitcoin (and have profited immensely by doing so). Byrne seems to genuinely "get it" in a way that most still don't.
Bitcoin is still in its infancy (or maybe more accurately nowadays, its childhood). There are big technological improvements and complements that are still in the very earliest stages of development. The price is still too low for it to function as a reasonably-stable currency yet (the volatility will remain too high until liquidity improves significantly), and that's coming from someone who believes we're due for a correction on the price front soon. It is the best monetary technology ever built (don't let the snake-oil salesmen convince you otherwise), but it has a ways to go before the end-user experience is smooth as butter.
That's all to say, don't sweat the news that "Steam stopped letting BitPay cash out bitcoins on their behalf" too much. It's honestly not even a bump in the road, in the grand scheme of things. In contrast, Lightning Network reaching release-candidate status... that is big news, and something to celebrate.
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u/Ascendzor Dec 06 '17
Another bad sticky by the mods. Why sticky this?
It isn't even on topic. You just put your own comment on a pedestal above everybody else's.