There's something about BIP110 that I think a lot of people overlook.
I remember when Core 30 hadn't been merged yet. Many of us went to the PR and overwhelmingly signaled no by downvoting it. It was obvious there was significant opposition. Then came the public debates between both sides. Those debates clearly showed that this wasn't some fringe disagreement,it was a real concern within the Bitcoin community.
Any reasonable person would have said, "Let's pause, talk this through, and find some common ground." After all, we're all on the same team: Bitcoin.
But that didn't happen. Core chose to merge the change anyway.
So when people now say filters don't matter or that they're harmless, my question is: if they weren't that important, why the rush? Why not take the time to understand why so many people were upset? Why not educate those who disagreed if the technical case was truly that strong?
Instead, the message many people received was: "We've decided this is the right thing to do, and if you're not technical enough, your opinion doesn't matter."
That mindset goes against the values Bitcoin was built on. Satoshi didn't challenge centralized authority just for developers to become a new authority that decides what should and shouldn't happen.
That's why many people said no to what they saw as Core's increasingly centralized decision-making, and why BIP110 became more than just a technical proposal. It became a stand against that direction.
@Luke Dashjr @Bitcoin Mechanic @calle