At the very least, something everybody used to agree was "anyone can spend" now will get you forked if you mine it that way.
Everyone also has agreed, on OP_SUCCESSx since inception, and OP_NOPx since almost forever, that this is extension space. So if you're doing this you're kind of retarded and asking for trouble, on top of being kind of retarded to do "anyone can spend" in the first place. Can just spend to OP_TRUE if you want to donate your coin to greedy bots, or OP_RETURN if you want to burn your coin.
Wouldn't any one of the soft forks in Bitcoin have lead to a chainsplit if the significant amount of miners didn't go along with it?
Could have if a significant amount of miners at the same time did go along with it, yes, and someone exploited it (very easy.)
At the end of the day, if they convince lots of people to accept their new rules, the coins will have value -- so that's where the social layer plays its role.
If there will be 2 chains as a result, then it's a hardfork though. We call that shitcoining.
But saying they don't want to follow the rules they previously agreed to without trying to fork is nonsensical.
Agreed. With forking it is also nonsensical in 99.99% of the cases. And UASF without sacrificing your coin on the non-fork side is a nonsensical virtue signaling sybil attack, so that too is dumb.
while soft forks are...something else.
Soft forks (especially if done right, with very high activation criteria, like the 95% we are used to) are consensus-building. Hard forks are consensus-breaking and the only reason for them to be successful is because there happened to already be consensus. That's the difference, I'd say.
OP_SUCCESSxsince inception, andOP_NOPxsince almost forever, that this is extension space. So if you're doing this you're kind of retarded and asking for trouble, on top of being kind of retarded to do "anyone can spend" in the first place. Can just spend toOP_TRUEif you want to donate your coin to greedy bots, orOP_RETURNif you want to burn your coin.