{"id":23961,"date":"2017-04-26T00:30:20","date_gmt":"2017-04-26T00:30:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ci027cfe7970112697"},"modified":"2017-04-26T00:30:20","modified_gmt":"2017-04-26T00:30:20","slug":"op-ed-contentious-hard-fork-isnt-only-nightmare2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bitcoinmagazine.com\/technical\/op-ed-contentious-hard-fork-isnt-only-nightmare2","title":{"rendered":"Op Ed: A Contentious Hard Fork Isn\u2019t the Only Nightmare for Bitcoin"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Dear Bitcoin Core and Bitcoin Unlimited Supporters,<\/p>\n

A contentious hard fork isn’t your only nightmare. <\/p>\n

Your nightmare is that the Bitcoin brand becomes so tarnished by the scaling debate that the general public, regulators, legislators and businesses decide that it\u2019s not wise to adopt it … ever.<\/p>\n

As the debate rages, the public is hearing about it … and the press isn\u2019t good. If you want evidence, take a look at Laura Shin\u2019s recent article in Forbes<\/a>. That\u2019s the one where she compared your in-fighting to that of the Democrats and the Republicans.<\/p>\n

Aside from terrorist groups like ISIS, it\u2019s hard to imagine any two groups that are more universally vilified than those two right now, at least in the United States.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t get me wrong. I\u2019m a huge fan of Shin. Like all of us who are devoting their lives to this \u201cspace,\u201d she WANTS Bitcoin and the Age of Decentralization to succeed. At the same time, she has a responsibility to tell the truth as a journalist. <\/p>\n

Her metaphor is accurate when you consider just what these two largest American political parties known for these days: not getting anything meaningful done, constantly attacking and bickering with each other, defending entrenched ideologies and putting selfish interests above the needs of the greater good. <\/p>\n

And like Republicans and Democrats who are losing the respect of the country, you developers, miners and other representative stakeholders on both sides of the block size debate, who, like it or not, represent our community, are making us all look bad. The results of this loss of respect can have implications far beyond the philosophical and technical issues.<\/p>\n

The world is watching and deciding what to make of this Bitcoin-Blockchain-Decentralization experiment.<\/p>\n

We are one side of Geoffrey Moore\u2019s<\/a>adoption curve chasm<\/a>, known for mapping out how technologies move from early adopters to mainstream usage. The key lesson of Moore\u2019s curve is that the people who are just on the edge of the Early Majority (as opposed to the Innovators like you and the Early Adopters like me) are the ones who are deciding if they will embrace it.<\/p>\n

However, if these potential adopters read, \u201cOh, it\u2019s like Democrats and Republicans\u201d when they are considering Bitcoin, they will probably react the way that they do with the real Democrats and Republicans.<\/p>\n

\u201cForget all of them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Perception Is Key<\/strong><\/p>\n

This new perception, combined with previous negative press that has accumulated since the days of Mt. Gox and Silk Road and the natural enemies of decentralization, will give additional ammunition to the people who want to keep Satoshi\u2019s fantastic innovation from spreading. And they will use it to instill fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD) in the general public.<\/p>\n

Primavera de Filippi, a research fellow at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University, introduced<\/a> me to Schopenhauer\u2019s three stages of technology adoption:<\/p>\n