Maybe it's more proof that no one cares?
The block size hasn't increased. Instead, a new chain forked out with an 8MB block size, it's called Bitcoin cash.
Lightning network hasn't launched yet. A few people are testing alpha on the main net and that's it. (Btw I'm a skeptic of lightning network so i'm not advocating lightning network here).
And Lightning, yup. I tried to use two Lightning implementations on the test net and neither worked, but they have been declared "ready!" by fans.
And Lightning deserves skepticism. Releasing software 1.0 means nothing: it requires a totally new infrastructure, with new wallets (again) which have to be online to receive money, hubs which don't exist at all today, liquidity providers willing to leave money locked in channels, (but hey, at least we didn't have to upgrade full nodes) and has completely different failure modes than the blockchain on top of the failure modes that are already there. As far as I understand it isn't even possible to receive more money than you already have with Lightning, and any part you open a channel with can block your funds for as long as the channel timeout has been set (and you don't want short/underfunded channels or you may end up paying more in transactions than you would have with a pure blockchain).
Also the opening and closing of channels means that if Lightning is actually successful the current block sizes won't be sufficient. It's at least one transaction to open the channel and another to close it, and because you want to keep a warm channel so you can buy coffee, you will want to do that whether you end up using the channel or not, but you also don't want it very long otherwise your money will be stuck if the channel goes down. So essentially you need to pay subscription fees to the blockchain for using the channels as well as well as commission to the channels for providing liquidity to you.
Maybe some super-centralized thing will come out of it and we'll all connect to the Coinbase Channel or something to do trustless centralized off-chain transactions (as opposed to trusted centralized off-chain transactions that they provide now) but even that has a host of problems when you think about it.
It's... a complicated system. It's cool and very interesting but it won't happen overnight and it's not guaranteed to actually work.
Lightning works. You can go download the repo and make apps with it today.
I am starting to feel like you guys all live in a different earth than me. On the earth I live, SegWit did not increase 4x block size.
> Lightning works. You can go download the repo and make apps with it today.
Everyone I know who has ACTUALLY downloaded and run the node thinks is extremely underwhelmed. I suggest you follow your own advice and go download lightning network client and run it yourself and try to use it and see what happens. Then we can talk.
LN is years from being actually usable by the masses. This is from their developers themselves.
> Maybe it's more proof that no one cares?
That's a pretty idiotic thing to say. The technology isn't ready yet despite the developers being aware of the problem for, as you say, years.
But what about the new problems it would introduce? I run a full node and even now it eats a significant portion of my bandwidth. With even larger blocks I would probably drop off the network altogether. And I'm sure I'm not the only one out there in this situation. Therefore, I don't think Core developers are exaggerating in their concerns about the centralization pressure caused by overly large blocks.
Moreover, wouldn't increasing the block size simply kick the can down the road? One advantage of the current fee pressure is that it strongly encourages the development of 2nd layer solutions. There are right now at least three independent teams working on Lightning Network implementations and they seem to be making quick progress...
Not everyone need to run a full node.
> Moreover, wouldn't increasing the block size simply kick the can down the road?
If you see it only as a temporary measure then sure. But it would for the time being solve Bitcoin's very urgent current problems.
Also any 2nd layer solutions require a blocksize increase, so the argument is kinda backwards.
> One advantage of the current fee pressure is that it strongly encourages the development of 2nd layer solutions.
Which is basically Core/Blocktream's plan. 2nd layer solutions is their whole business model...
But why opt out of something that we know works for a solution which isn't ready and may not even work?
Scaling should be done both on-chain and off-chain. Favoring one to the exclusion of the other is just wrong.
That's as if there was a frenzy to buy a new brand of car and no-one cared that the cars' engines actually break down after 50 meters.
That being said, I think it's true - but it's a hint that the current "mass adoption" is mainly fueled by speculators and not by people who genuinely believe in it's purpose as a currency.