[sonoffett]

I think the consensus protocol is absolutely not under control of 5 maintainers. Convince a few of the miners and exchanges (e.g., f2, ant, bitfury, coinbase, blockchain.info, bitstamp) to actually start running classic and we'll have 2MB blocks on the longest chain in no time. Conversely, suppose those 5 maintainers release a hard fork version of segwit tomorrow without a block size increase--nobody would upgrade.

The consensus protocol is dictated by exactly that, consensus, not this allegedly omnipotent cabal.

[TheOsiris]

no one is saying they're omnipotent, or impossible to replace. however, you have to admit that replacing them/core or convincing all of these people/companies to adopt anything other than what is coming in core v-next is an uphill battle. I'm going to assume you've been watching this whole blocksize debate, the endless roundtables, conferences... and we're still on square 1. Actually, with classic I think we've at least moved one step forward and a lot of full-node adoption is underway.

Miners are a different story though; understandably, they're very reluctant to change (who would with so much money on the line). It is also unfortunate how miners switch back and forth between classic and core so quickly.