Yeah, Andy Back telling us we weren't technical enough was a big turn off. And yes, enshitification is a real thing. Despite this, to paraphrase a quote from Winston Churchill: "Decentralised protocols are the worst form of protocols, except for all the rest"

Am not saying it isn't. It's just tainted money which does seem to be a historical norm anyway. Well done on the childish ending to your reply, always improves discussions. I personally wasn't too bothered to dig into the whole debate until I had to set up new node and had to endure watching the last 5% take 5 or 6 times as long as previous 95%. I dunno what quite to say other than well done! For something so potentially profoundly important, one would hope the kids don't piss in the pool, that's all.

Um, the reason the backend of the chain takes significantly longer is because "assume utxo valid" no longer applies past a certain block height. Your node only fully validates the very recent chain history.