Likewise, I appreciate we could discuss this in a civil manner (quite rare these days) I find appealing to the text in the white paper, in today's context vs. when it was written, requires also acknowledging that the code pushed on Jan 3 2009 is not the same as it is today. Hell, even the 21M supply cap wasn't coded in the original software release (see

GitHub

bips/bip-0042.mediawiki at master · bitcoin/bips

Bitcoin Improvement Proposals. Contribute to bitcoin/bips development by creating an account on GitHub.

), nor was the supply cap even mentioned in the white paper. Op_return wasn't added until 2014 (same version release [Bitcoin Core version 0.9.0] that the above BIP was added to consensus). So to appeal to the white paper as the absolute intent of the project would be a little faulty in my opinion

Bitcoin has technically changed over time yes, but it's identity is clear. Bitcoin having changed over time doesn't mean that any additional change is valid. The appeal is not to the exact written text of the white paper, but to the explicit identity of the technology. It is a cash system. That's why people like it, that's why people use it. In terms of storing and transmitting multi-media, there's much more appropriate and better ways. This mirrors the legal concept known as the "spirit of the law": the meaning of the law when it was written. Following the law literally can sometimes violate the spirit in which is was written. The spirit of Bitcoin is as the title of the paper suggests. If we wind up going from a "cash system" to "multi-media system", we've made a wrong turn. Putting multi media on Bitcoin simply because you can is violating the spirit of Bitcoin. To use a crude analogy: You could encode image data into a series of electronic bank transfer "reference" fields by breaking it up into tiny chunks and making a lot of transfers. It's obvious to anyone that this is not the point of those fields. Violating the intent of the system is how we categorize "hacks" from proper use. Appealing to the identity of a bank as a "financial institution" is not invalidated by the mere fact that banking has evolved over time or that people can hack it.

All fair points. You've given me a bit to think about...no pun intended