Issue #404: Very important to understand
It is important to keep this in mind as we continue to build out Bitcoin. Having a protocol driven by economic incentives and cryptography is much different than a protocol driven by the utility of being able to process and present data at incredible speeds.
People often make the easy mistake of comparing Bitcoin's protocol development to other types of protocol development. While the comparisons may be apt in some instances, they certainly do not hold water across the board. Due to Bitcoin's unique incentive system that depends on humans to interaction to give it value. Tweaking something at the protocol level that makes the tech faster or more efficient but messes with the incentive system holding the protocol together is not tenable.
I’d like to point out that Bitcoin software dev is very different from normal sw/protocol dev. When designing Unix libraries or TCP/IP you don’t need to worry about breaking the incentive structure at the base layer. But in BTC it’s the only thing that holds everything together. https://t.co/ao4WI8oPwg
— Hugo Nguyen (@hugohanoi) January 20, 2019
It is important to keep this in mind as we continue to build out Bitcoin. Having a protocol driven by economic incentives and cryptography is much different than a protocol driven by the utility of being able to process and present data at incredible speeds. Because of this, we must be even more conservative than similar open source projects like Unix. A small tweak could have a considerable impact on the incentive system that renders the protocol worthless.
Prudence, patience, and precision are needed when approaching Bitcoin development. Even though we want Bitcoin to be so many things right now, it is advantageous for those interested in Bitcoin's long-term success to come to grips with this reality and act accordingly.
Final thought...
Really dismayed at the state of media and the constrained framing of debate around the world because of their insidious modus operandi.
