I fully agree that those with bigger stake should not have a bigger say though in reality, having bigger stake usually comes with bigger influence. But those maintaining bitcoin codes also shouldn't have any bigger say. The very fact that they are developers meant they have extreme pressure internally within themselves to want to change things or do cool new things.

Weirdly, there's a great deal of pressure *against* ambitious changes. You're signing up for a half-decade grind, whereas other changes have a much better risk-reward profile. There's a reason I've generally stayed out of Bitcoin development and stuck with Lightning, where life is easy:)

There is a great reason to not break something that is working. The approach to changes in the bitcoin environment through max pain (BIPs, reviews and endless testing) is a way to remain max conservative. This is good, because there is a lot at stake (no pun intended) to have the base layer not failing. To get funding or appreciation for your work and implement your personal ideas, bitcoin is not your environment. Much kudo's and respect for those programmers who manage to survive and stay a bitcoin programmer! That you @Rusty Russell for being a lightning developer and enjoying it, for work must not feel as work for you to be the best version of you on the matter 💪 The freedom to program what you recon the market may want is very entrepreneurial vs. conservative and probably the most fun for (a/most) developer(s) 👊

People who produced more value should have more say. And they in fact do. Economic majority decides the rules.

Yes! Produced value or Provided value (proof of work?) should be the key words here vs. Ownership (stake). "Proof of Work" really means something on many levels/layers and has value 😁

Sort of, they certainly decide which fork ends up worth more. I think that at some point "Bitcoin" could deteriorate to the point where I'll willingly side with the losing fork. Everyone has a breaking point