Outsider's look at Bitcoin's development as a mature software project

To start, I am not an expert of the issues developing Bitcoin. However, I am a software developer, and as one, the insight into the whole scaling issue is interesting. The fact that there is or can be an agreement to something that is or resembles SegWit is nice and encouraging. I think that the issue itself however, takes interesting dimensions.

First and foremost, if Bitcoin is a considered a business, one that is high-growth, a number like this:

is no laughing matter. For something that was just imagined just a few years ago (like all software projects mainly), with lots of doubters and skeptics of what value this is, this is amazing in itself. We know that the value here is tiny compared to other institutions. But for average people, it's a lot.

The value of good code

I don't know what is happening, but to have anything but the best, well-tested and trustworthy code is paramount. Bitcoin has its value in part because the implementation is itself trustful. Basically this means good, skilled software engineers developing rock-solid code is a value in itself. For example, people's coins have been stolen or lost, but the integrity of the network hasn't. That's amazing to say and is humbling to see for me looking in.

In a mission critical software system of any type, particularly something that makes money, the endpoints: that code which takes in critical data and the systems that make up that network of responsibility needs to be robust, redundant against failure, etc. If it is just code that is your point-of-failure, you're revenue-maker or your value-maintainer/creator, you'd think that being careful with that is just expected. In the Bitcoin world, it read like there were people who wanted to have changes made to the protocol without vetting. First off, this happens all the time in all sorts of software projects, but second, don't be surprised there are politics, and for Bitcoin and the crypto universe, extreme uncertainty when things do happen.

SLAs

The certainty from Bitcoin is that it is distributed, that markets decide what the value is in the end and that hasty changes cannot get in. Maybe some software projects don't have the market constraint, but there are certainly legal ones. For example, certain mission critical systems are blessed with SLA (service level agreements) clauses that encourage good development and discourage bad development (even then, things happen!) In this case, the reason Bitcoin is in the place where it is now is because the market is the SLA.

The market was the SLA for Ethereum (and all other crypto also) when just a few days before I write this there was a flash crash. People panicked. I do not own Ethereum because of this ICO craze. In this case, an ICO coin caused it. I don't care for the details; it shows Ethereum's immaturity. So, how can we be confident in the 'flippening' or whatever it is being called? And secondly, who cares if there is?

Conclusion

What excites me about the potential of Bitcoin is the fact that here we have a software system, impervious to attack because of a solid model, a solid codebase, etc., generating something that people are willing to pay a lot for knowing that many more will want a piece of this. This is a long term proposition. It is simple, unlike a company. It's value in a complex but complete model that works today.

When considering crypto in the end, consider who is making it. Consider the stress-levels of those software developers pushing away code that is not vetted or ideas that have to be sat on for a long time (e.g. SegWit) before we can say with certainty that it works well. Remember the concern of developers deploying code out to the wild and how they are responsible for it working for others well. This is another thing that makes Bitcoin amazing.

The fundamentals of Bitcoin remain strong. This is just one other aspect to consider as we are all long-term investors and long-term thinkers when it comes to cryptocurrency. The daily swings of the market mean nothing if the long-term is bright for cryptocurrency and in particular, Bitcoin.

Despite all this, it is worth to consider counterpoints to the Bitcoin model itself. I recommend this article on Steem posted a day before this post: https://steemit.com/bitcoin/@thecryptofiend/is-bitcoin-governance-truly-decentralised-should-it-be ;)