If you're talking present-day, yeah, mostly Bitcoin hoarders don't want to see any change that might make their currency start functioning like a currency instead of fake gold.

A) Barriers to initially acquiring crypto coins remain a bit high. B) Expense of transactions remains way too high, C) Transactions are way too slow, and D) For Bitcoin in particular, the hoarders make it politically difficult for Bitcoin to move to an algorithm that can produce faster transactions and therefore serve as a better means of payment.

All the major blockchains in the cryptocurrency ecosystem, right now, are too slow and expensive to be of much use as a currency to the global economy. It stands to reason that if one of them, unburdened with Bitcoin-holder demands for ever-increasing scarcity, solves that problem (Proof of Stake?), then Bitcoin will be supplanted by a cryptocurrency that improves the currency experience. Several are in the process of fixing that, while Bitcoin is not.

No cryptocurrency's competition is Bitcoin. The competition is old school means of payment. If your currency becomes closer than Bitcoin to being as useful as traditional money, your currency will have an advantage over Bitcoin.

Imagine you sell a phone on Craigslist, for crypto. You and the buyer can either deal with a $10 fee and 30 minutes to an hour of sitting in a Starbucks to complete your transaction, or you can give up, swap cash for goods, and walk away. Which one do you choose? Time is expensive, too.

Which is not even to mention my most cryptocurrency-controversial belief: Gold is the only deflationary asset that might not flash-crash into non-existence as a hoarder favorite.

Currencies' value lies in their usefulness as a means of exchange. Cheaper operation of the network and faster verification of transactions make for a better currency.

And the more powerful Ethereum-like blockchains that remain on a Proof of Work system are too expensive to perform their most interesting possible duties. Cost and speed improvements are essential for making the next leap forward.

It makes absolutely zero sense to bend to holders' "I must have a guaranteed deflationary asset, or I will complain to all my libertarian friends" desires. There are so many more important things to do with blockchain tech, including more globally important ways to create wealth.

EDIT: "You" is not the parent thread. I'm just expanding on what the parent said.

It absolutely does happen with other languages. It just happens in Node with greater volume because of the greater volume of programmers, low barriers to entry for JavaScript, lack of a rich standard library, the convergence of server focused coders and frontend coders, and lack of consensus around best practices and frameworks for applications.

Kind of the way it's been possible to write decent code in PHP since version 5. Yet the overall ecosystem is still mostly bad.

Lots of need to fashion very basic tools + high volume of inexperience + democracy = A package repo full of nonsense where it's difficult to find the diamonds in the rough.

Parliamentary systems with proportional representation and "coalition" governments exist throughout the world. The U.S. just isn't one of them and would require a big overhaul of the Constitution in order to change that.

Political business monocultures have been a thing since forever. Dial the clock back a little and you have bosses pressuring you to campaign for Nixon. Dial it forward again and you have CEOs starting meetings with prayer. Dial it forward to today where one dude gets fired for arguing Nazi race science, and suddenly we all have to chat.