How I'd pitch a script upgrade \ stacker news ~bitcoin

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8302 sats \ 11 comments \ @k00b 5h bitcoin

I'd build a full-fledged application that uses the fork to do something so obviously compelling today's bitcoin users would beg for it to be forked in. There's no guarantee that it'd succeed, in fact it's much more likely to fail, and if it failed it'd be expensive to me and a massive waste of my time. But, if a script upgrade succeeds without an obviously compelling application, and one can't be produced after the upgrade, then it's expensive to everyone and a massive waste of everyone's time.

If the average node runner needed payment pools, wouldn't they want them? If the average node runner needed vaults, wouldn't they want them? People don't know what they want, let alone need, but if they don't want what you're selling even after you've shown them the advantages - in a way they understand and can fully appreciate - it's your fault, not theirs. It's not the fault of other developers either, it's yours. Your theories about the maybe-valuable things some maybe-people will use aren't enough now.

Utility more often emerges than it is preconceived, but the people that appreciate that, developers, don't control the network anymore. White papers and think pieces aimed at developers won't do much good (especially if you have no political capital). At best developer advocacy might compel other developers to sell your upgrade for you, but odds are no one will sell your upgrade that you're the expert on. Your premonitions about an ever advancing ossification threat don't matter either. "I don't have time to convince you because I'll need to convince even more people later" isn't going to win anyone over.

Personally, I'd be happy to fork in CTV, CAT, VAULT, or GSR, but what a few of us want doesn't matter. If forever ossification is looming, the best thing to do is admit you suck at selling and get better at it fast. Or, just admit you aren't that convicted. Blaming other people for not doing their job because they don't see your genius, or resorting to bad faith arguments, is strictly foolish. If no salesman on earth is good enough to sell your fork, then either it isn't that compelling or ossification isn't looming - it has already happened.

If you aren't willing to waste a soul-crushing abundance of time and money building the arguments and applications, no quorum is going to waste their time imagining, upfront, what value you might theoretically give them if they just let you have your way. Changing bitcoin consensus is, by design, one of the hardest things in the world. We can't cap our sacrifice and expect we'll accomplish an upgrade.

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170 sats \ 1 reply \ @ca 4h

I wish we had gotten a demo of the self-custodial Lightning wallets at the time of the blocksize war promises. It turned out much more messy than I'd have imagined, we lost so many of the bitcoin properties in terms of ease of use.

45 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 3h

Are you saying you'd side with the Big Blockers if you could go back?

55 sats \ 0 replies \ @OT 2h

Ark seemed to get quite a bit of attention and then funding while still in a proof of concept phase. Maybe some ideas just click better than others.

138 sats \ 0 replies \ @OgFOMK 5h

People don't know what they want, let alone need, but if they don't want what you're selling even after you've shown them the advantages - in a way they understand and can fully appreciate - it's your fault, not theirs. It's not the fault of other developers either, it's yours. Your theories about the maybe-valuable things some maybe-people will use aren't enough now.

This is sales! Absolutely truth here.

Very nice sales wisdom.

126 sats \ 4 replies \ @SimpleStacker 5h

Interesting thoughts, though I'm not sure what the context is that you're responding to.

It sounds to me like the massive sacrifice needed to pitch an upgrade to bitcoin core is a huge barrier, and thus most new development will occur on lightning or other layer 2 solutions.

Because even if you wanted to demonstrate your compelling use-case, it'd be easier to get people to try it out on L2 than to actually run a forked node.

158 sats \ 3 replies \ @k00b OP 5h

The context is, vaguely, every failed fork proposal. More recently a lot of the covenant proposals. It causes a lot of thrashing which I have genuine empathy for. However, afaict most of the problem is:

it's extremely hard to accomplish a fork (past folks with tons of political capital made it look easy ... and it has gotten harder)
developers under-appreciate how hard it is to do sales (and blame the world instead)

226 sats \ 2 replies \ @SimpleStacker 3h

developers under-appreciate how hard it is to do sales (and blame the world instead)

Much truth. Technical people underestimate how difficult non-technical work actually is. As I've grown older, I've appreciated the importance of social skills like making clients feel comfortable, making a sales pitch, and leadership skills like inspiring people and maintaining a good work culture.

These intangibles are hard to measure, but they are undoubted valuable and difficult to do. Personally, I'd rather sit in front of a computer and code. I very much appreciate being able to offload the social responsibilities to someone else.

37 sats \ 1 reply \ @k00b OP 3h

It took me a long time and many failures to appreciate sales and other soft skills. I'm still under-indexed on sales et al, but I know the huge blind spot is there.

174 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 3h

I'm still under-indexed on sales et al, but I know the huge blind spot is there.

Same here. Because of that, some of my best (research) work has been the result of collaboration where I partnered with someone who was better at sales, hustling, networking, etc, whereas I provided a solid technical foundation. Sales is important in research too.

17 sats \ 0 replies \ @Shugard 5h

Changing bitcoin consensus is, by design, one of the hardest things in the world.

That's its strength.

0 sats \ 0 replies \ @satoshiiiiiii 5h outlawed

stackers have outlawed this. turn on wild west mode in your /settings to see outlawed content.