Hijacking Bitcoin is an eye-opening book by one of the most prominent Bitcoin entrepreneurs and evangelists, Roger Ver.
Roger gave me permission to use excerpts from the book, and while I originally planned to create a shorter version, the content of the book is so well-structured that as I worked, I kept adding more.
Roger Ver presents a compelling case for how Bitcoin was captured, with its original vision distorted and its disruptive potential diminished.
Hijacking Bitcoin is undoubtetly a valuable read for anyone interested in cryptocurrencies and the underlying technology.
You can find Roger Ver's book on: www.hijackingbitcoin.com/
Petition (important): https://www.change.org/p/roger-ver-a-cryptocurrency-pioneer-deserving-justice-and-freedom
You are over-complicating the matter. A temporary limit on the block size was put in early on to prevent the network being spammed since transactions were free at that time. By 2014 there was no such concern anymore and there was no technical reason not to increase this limit. It could have easily been increased to at least 2MB with zero impact on anything. They crafted a new narrative about not being able to run a node on a nintendo so we must stall all progress to accommodate 3 people that want to run a node on a laptop with 515MB of ram.
It was total sabotage.
Perhaps, but there are at least 5 factions mentioned even in Roger Ver's account. Project management is hard, especially for a research project (i.e. trying to build something that's never been built before) and people dig in for the dumbest reasons. Usually, developers can hash out a compromise solution but when non-developers try to "help" like the Reddit moderator or the companies putting out the ad to pressure the core team to change, things can get very messy and factions solidify to the point where nothing moves forward. IMO, if developers were to just sit down together to resolve this, a new structure would have formed. Bitcoin Next Generation would contain all the advanced experimental changes such as those that eventually got into Etherium. Bitcoin Preview would contain all Bitcoin Next Generation which have a solid chance of being accepted into Bitcoin Core but need proving time. Finally Bitcoin Core would be the most conservative Bitcoin branch which would only contain changes from Bitcoin Preview. Yes, they would be 3 different coins but they would work towards being mutually compatible and would be able to satisfy all parties. If you want to see how well this would work, look at Debian which has the "Unstable, Testing, and Stable" branches. All three branches are in use. Note, "stable" is ossified (like Bitcoin Core). It's old but it was proven.
Sounds like you are trying to obfuscate and rationalize the hijacking of bitcoin.
Facts: 1MB limit on blocks was put in to prevent spam early on with a clear plan to raise it as the network grew, then the project was infused with shady corporate money and they changed the story that 1MB blocks are essential for decentralization which coincidentally provided blockstream (the corporate entity) with a revenue model.
It was a deliberate attempt to cripple bitcoin so it could not compete with the banking system for payments.